Moving the Chains: An Officiating Tutorial

By Scott Ludwig, [email protected]

Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver once got into an argument with the home plate umpire.

After an animated ‘conversation,’ Weaver walked back to the dugout screaming.

‘I’m going to check my rule book on that one,’ Weaver shouted.

‘Be my guest, use mine,’ the umpired offered.

Weaver replied, ‘that’s no good; I can’t read Braille.’

***

A friend of mine said he gets frustrated whenever someone refers to a member of the officiating crew at a Major League Baseball game as a referee.  ‘Baseball has umpires, dammit; why don’t they just call them that?’*

*Actually, he was also angry about NFL announcers calling all 7 officials ‘referees’ as well.  As you will soon find out, there is only one referee in football.  He’s the one wearing a white hat.  Also, I took a few liberties with what my friend said.  For example, he didn’t actually say ‘dammit.’  But using it in lieu of his words makes this story a lot more family-friendly.  

Until my friend brought it up, the last time I was interested in baseball was when the Earl Weaver was still coaching.  Seeing him kick dirt on umpire’s shoes arguing at home plate over any calls that – in Weaver’s mind, anyway – the umpires got wrong put some pizzaz into an otherwise mundane game.  That was nearly 50 years ago.  

And in all those years I’d never given a second thought about what to call the members of the officiating crew.  Umpires or referees: it never really mattered to me.  To my friend, however, not knowing the difference constitutes a felony.  

Regardless of what you choose to call them, they all wear the exact same blue uniform, except the one behind home plate wears a chest protector and a face mask.  Working as a crew, they’re responsible for calling balls and strikes, determining if a ball is fair or foul, and whether runners are safe or out.

But feel free to call them anything you like.  Just don’t get it wrong if my friend is within earshot.  He’s likely to make a citizen’s arrest.        

But since we’re on the subject, let me go ahead and point out that baseball has a home plate umpire, base umpires, and outfield umpires.  No referees; just umpires.  Three different kinds of umpires, but all from the same species.  

Speaking of species, let’s go ahead and move on to the zebras, otherwise known as the officials of the National Football League (NFL) and the National Basketball Association (NBA).  

But first, a little background on the black and white striped uniform shirts worn in both leagues.

The black and white design was chosen to distinguish them from the players on the field so they would easily stand out.  (Perhaps implying the face masks worn in the NFL and the short pants worn in the NBA – not to mention the players dressed in their team colors – weren’t enough to delineate the players from the officials.)    

There’s also a psychological reason: the contrast of black and white is considered to be neutral and unbiased, and as such reflects the role of the officials in enforcing the rules without favoritism.  (Whatever you do, please don’t search ‘Tim Donaghy’ on the Internet.  It will destroy that last point.)   

In basketball there’s a three-man crew consisting of a crew chief, a referee, and an umpire.  Don’t ask me which is which because as far as I’m concerned, with all due apologies to my friend, they’re all referees.  ‘Refs’ for short.  I can sense most of you are nodding in agreement (don’t let my friend see you).

Now, football is a bit more complicated.  The seven-man crew consists not only of a referee and an umpire, but also – drum roll – judges.  Five of them, to be exact.  There’s a down judge, a line judge, a field judge, a side judge, and a back judge.  Raise your hand if you knew that.  Now raise both if you can tell them apart.  I’m not seeing a lot of hands out there.  I’ll be honest: until I did a little research, I couldn’t tell the difference either.  

Now there are judges to go with umpires and referees, making things even more complicated.  Leave it to the NFL to muddy the waters.

To me they’ve always simply been one thing: officials.  I knew they all had the same job to do: make sure everyone played by the rules, and to call them out if they didn’t.

Referee, umpire, judge.  To me that’s just semantics. 

But at least now I understand why my friend gets so frustrated.