The Case for No Referees

There you are, sitting on the edge of your seat, chewing your fingernails, mentally willing the batter for your favorite team to get a hit. Men on second and third, two outs, bottom of the ninth, the batter has a full count and your team is down by one run. Here comes the wind up, the pitch, and a swing! The ball flies over the third basemen’s head, a classic sinking line drive headed for the corner. The left fielder isn’t going to get there! The runners take off and the ball falls in bounds and heads for the corner. Game Over! We win!

Oops, not so fast.

The third baseline umpire signals the ball was foul. It doesn’t count. The coach storms out of the dugout, screaming, pointing, and jumping up and down on his hat. 30 million people watch the replay repeatedly, and even the big screen in center field shows it. The ball was fair by a half foot. Not half an inch, not two inches, but the ball hit a full six inches inside the line, more than the diameter of the ball. It's no use. The call stands. The next pitch is called a strike that replay clearly shows is 6 inches outside and low. Game over. You lose.

This happens every day in sports. The referee or umpire, or whatever the official n whatever the sport is, gets it wrong. In fact, he often screws it so badly that the entire outcome of the game is changed. Go ask the Irish about the recent non-call of a French player’s hand check that cost the Irish a spot in the World Cup.

This situation is more than a little ironic.

The whole point of referees is to make sure games are fairly played and according to the rules. Without referees, aficionados assure us, everyone would cheat. The games would be chaos. How can one have a fair contest without a referee?

For many, the question is becoming how we have a fair contest when the referees do such a poor job and have so much influence on the outcome.

Instant replay and computerization have the ability to eliminate most of these errors. A computer, hooked to a couple of radar detectors could call balls and strikes with nearly 100% accuracy. Why can’t the umpire look at a replay and say yes the ball was fair? It would be the fair thing to do. All the players
simply need to remember is that any given play can be reviewed, so play them all like they count.

Not so fast say those wedded to the tradition, who maintain that an essential part of the game is the human element, including referees and umpires.

Really? You like going to a football game and watching the referees play throw the yellow hanky on every other down? If that’s your idea a good time, you are some kind of masochist.

Do you know what game doesn’t have referees? Golf. Every player is on his or her honor to follow the rules and penalize himself when he violates a rule. And they do. Imagine that. Do you think some of them cheat? Sure. However, they aren’t invited back if they do it too much or too flagrantly.

One of my favorite golf stories is on Stewart Cink. He was playing in a tournament in New Orleans and found himself in a fairway bunker. He hit his shot out of the bunker and his ball went well down the fairway but ended up in a second bunker next to the green. In frustration, he slapped at the sand with his club as he was climbing out of the fairway bunker. He played on, finished the hole and later signed his scorecard for the number of strokes he had taken. Later that night, he realized that he had grounded his club in a hazard by hitting the sand in the first bunker, while his ball was in a hazard, the second bunker by the green. This is a violation of the rules. He should have added a penalty to his score for this infraction. The next morning he showed up at the official’s tent and announced that he had signed an incorrect scorecard the day before and explained why. The rules were clear, and Mr. Cink knew that he would be disqualified from the tournament, but he admitted his error anyway. He could have gotten completely away with it, because no one had noticed or didn’t realize what the rule was. The proof is that I watched a PGA player on TV do exactly the same thing last year. He did not call the rule on himself, the TV announcers didn’t catch it, an official watched him do it and said nothing, and no viewers called in. Maybe I should have, but I considered it was a sort of character and knowledge test for that player. He failed it.

Golf has been using replays for years. Craig Stadler was playing in the third round in a tournament in 1987. He was in contention at the time. His ball ended up under a low hanging tree. He could get a swing at the ball, but only if he got on his knees to do it. The grass was wet and he did not want to get his pants soaked, so he placed a towel on the ground and then knelt on the towel to hit his ball. The official following the group said nothing. The TV announcers said nothing. However, a fair number of TV viewers telephoned and pointed out that Mr. Stadler had violated the rule about artificially building his stance. Because it took until after Stadler had signed his incorrect scorecard for the officials to be informed, and because he did not penalize himself and essentially signed an incorrect scorecard (as Cink had done) he was disqualified from the tournament.

Mr. Stadler might very well have thought this unkind, but the moral of this story is that the TV viewing audience made the call, not a rules official, and yet everyone agreed that the violation had occurred and the consequence that entailed was the right one, even if belatedly applied.

So, tell me again, why we can’t rule a baseball is in bounds within seconds of the play ending by looking at incontrovertible replay proof? That would be because of…

But let’s not hold golf up as the shining example. It has its flaws, and it does indeed have officials who can impose penalties and apply rules to the outcome. Although, I don’t think I ever saw them get it wrong. Would you believe there is a fast moving, highly athletic team sport with no referees? Yep, there really is one; it’s called Ultimate Frisbee.

If you haven’t watched a game of Ultimate Frisbee played by reasonably accomplished players, you owe it to yourself to take some time to do so. You will be amazed and entertained. It is something of a cross among football, soccer, and basketball. It is fast moving, with players running, jumping, diving, and generally flying around the field at top speed. The Frisbee throws all by themselves are amazing.

The goal is to catch the Frisbee in your end zone, which is one point. You can’t run with the Frisbee, but must move it only by throwing and catching. You can’t interfere with a person trying to catch the Frisbee, as in football, or the person throwing it. No part of the body can be touching out of bounds while catching the Frisbee, though it only takes one toe touching in bounds for it to be legal catch. If the Frisbee touches the ground, it goes over to the other team at that spot, and they go on offense immediately. Play continues as in soccer, being continuous and only stopping for goals, team time outs and half time. Play stops on out of bounds throws or the Frisbee hitting the ground only long enough for the other team to get them situated before they pick up the Frisbee and start play again. These are the basic rules, though there are some others. Obviously you need referees to monitor and enforce these rules, right? Nope. The players do it themselves.

If a player thinks he has been fouled or the catch was not legal, he makes the call. Sometimes the offending player will call the foul on himself. Usually a player calls a foul or infraction only if the play had a bad outcome for the team that was fouled, such as a failure to catch the Frisbee. Play stops right there and then. If the offending player or team agrees with the call, the team that was fouled gets possession of the Frisbee at the spot of the foul and play resumes. If the two teams do not agree, and after some brief discussion, it becomes clear that they will not, the offensive team takes the Frisbee back where the play that resulted in the foul began and replay from there. That’s it, the entire conflict resolution: play on where it happened or do it over. There are no penalty kicks, added yardage or free throws.

The players of the game, just like those in golf, have a tradition and a pride in being honorable. One of their tenets is that they enjoy the competition first and win second. Winning by any means, especially by cheating or bending the rules is not thought of well. At times, a team will have field lawyer who wants to call a foul on every play. At other times one or more players may engage if too much rule breaking. The other side will usually tolerate either situation for a little while, but eventually the captains will get together and have a frank discussion. In most cases, the teammates of the offenders will pile on and make it clear they need to cool it. The offenders usually do.

Do cheaters and unfair applications of the rules occur in Ultimate Frisbee? Sure. However, it happens much less often than you might think, much, much less often than in other sports where the referees are the cause.

I don't intend to argue that Ultimate Frisbee is the ultimate team sport. Rather, it is an example of how to play a team game without the often All Knowing OZ rulings of referees and umpires dictating the outcome of the game incorrectly.

I like instant replay reviews, what little they are used. Baseball could be umpired almost entirely with cameras, radar, computers and replay. Why shouldn’t it? Really, why not? The call would be right 99.9% of the time. Look what they can do now with Tennis line calls.

Do the various replay systems have their downsides and flaws? Of course. It shouldn’t take 5 minutes to make a decision from looking at the replay. Most sports commentators do it in seconds, whereas the trained officials seem incapable of anything approaching snail fast speed. I also don’t like limiting coaches to just two challenges as they do in professional football. Seems to me, once a coach uses up all his two challenges the officials have no incentive to get it right thereafter.

It is possible to go on about the current flaws in the various replay systems, but there is nothing so far wrong in my view that cannot be improved and fixed. However, if the last seasons in football and baseball are any indication, there doesn’t seem to be much that can be fixed about referees.