UMPIRES: WE NEED THEM

By Charles E. Vasoll

Can you imagine a baseball game in which the catcher and batter determine whether a pitch was a ball or a strike? Or how about a basketball game where a player acknowledges he fouled an opponent in the act of shooting but the opponent declines the call and says, “He didn’t touch me”. Even in our cousin sport, “lawn” tennis, one-player calls a ball “out” while the player on the far side states it was definitely “in”. All sports have quickly recognized that an arbiter of some nature was required to make judgements and that the participants should not have that authority. Then along comes a new sport named “platform tennis”.

The founders of this new sport were of the opinion that it was “a gentlemen’s game”. They believed, if I read the history correctly, that the players were honest beyond reproach, and could be trusted to call errors against themselves even if it meant loss of a game or a set or a title. The closest sport we have to this philosophy is, of course, golf. But even in that honored game, rules officials are present and a huge television audience often acts as a monitor of play.

There is still a strong effort to continue this “call it on yourself” understanding of violations of the rules. Nevertheless, more often than not, some violations are difficult for a player to determine even when their degree of honesty is beyond question.

This is not to be interpreted as a condemnation in any way of today’s participants in our sport. Certainly, however, some of the early active participants in the sport feared that opening platform tennis to the masses would dilute the honesty of play. There were those who wanted to keep the sport in the “country clubs” where it would continue to be played honestly by “gentlemen”.

What I feel is really different now is the speed of the game, not the honesty of the players. There is much more athleticism in the sport today and too often the players are not in the correct position to make a proper decision. For example, it is not always a matter of “honesty” to call a ball “in” or “out” but a matter of the quickness of the shot and to be in the proper line of sight to make the call accurately.

I have heard about incidents, and witnessed some myself, in both matches with National title significance and ones where almost nothing was at stake that erupted into a battle of words rather than a battle on the court. The presence of an umpire can make all the difference.

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