Now, Baseball Really Is Back

Now baseball can claim it really is back.

Starting with Wednesday’s games, consumer fraud will cease and the real product, the one that has been advertised, will go on sale again. Starting Wednesday, the “real” umpires will return to work.

No word whether they will be bringing any humility with them.

No word whether they will return swollen with the same unseemly, strutting selfimportance as before.

No word whether they will return as the same tyrannical, confrontational provocateurs as before, hoping for someone to challenge them, “daring” player or manager to question them, obviously intoxicated with power, laboring under the woefully misguided notion that we come to see them rather than the game.

No, the only assurance we have is that they will hang chest protectors where the picket signs were and come back for five years.

Five years guaranteed. Which is five years more assurance than the players and owners have given us.

The umpires’ mouthpiece, Richie Phillips, trumpeted the tired refrain: “Everyone has won.”

Hardly. In fact, in labor strife as in war, there are no winners. Money gets lost that can never be recouped. Words get said that can never be taken back. Bitterness gets planted that only festers.

But victory must be claimed, however hollow, so the troops don’t feel they have been used and will dutifully fall in line the next time the charge is sounded.

But the overriding news is that the “real” umpires are coming back, and it is welcome news indeed. The game was just not the same without them. And the money paid by the fans for admission in the first week was money taken under false pretenses. Do not be looking for any refund checks, however.

The replacement arbiters, no matter how wellintentioned, no matter how capable or incapable, were serving only to pervert the product. Not necessarily by their ability or inability, but simply by their presence.

The game cannot be played naturally with replacement umpires. A strain is placed on the players, the managers, the coaches and, yes, the umpires themselves. From afar, the difference may seem subtle and not worthy of the furor. But it exists, and it affects every facet of the game.

The most common complaint was behind the plate. The strike zone seemed to constantly shift, like a lava lamp. Consequently, catchers said they couldn’t develop any rhythm in their attempts to call pitches, and pitchers said they couldn’t get a feel for what was always going to be a ball and what was always going to be a strike, and the hitters said ditto.

So every game was played uneasily, no one ever able to get comfortable. That has to affect performance.

And you always had the uncomfortable feeling, a dread actually, that if confronted with something nasty, the replacement umpires would have no control at all. You don’t want Cowboy Joe West out there grabbing a player from behind and executing his best World Wrestling Federation slam-dance toss, but neither could you shake the image of replacement umps being run over by the stampede out of the dugout the first time someone charged the mound.

And no, that isn’t entirely fair to the replacement umpires, who might have conducted themselves with valor and honor. Anyway, the best umpires are back. That also means some of the worst are back. But at least the game has credibility now. It is legitimate once again.

The umpires are needed. Almost as much as they think they are.