MLB umpiring is bad, but …

With parents’ blood pressure rising throughout the area as kids are off from school for the summer, here’s a little food for thought to make your day:

• Over the last couple of years, Major League Baseball umpires have been getting carved up by players, fans and the media. And for the most part, it has been deserved.

However, when you think about it, the biggest complaints about the umpires involve the calling of balls and strikes.

The rectangular strike zone superimposed on the television screen shows when the umps are right and wrong on calls anywhere near the edges of the marked zone on the screen.

Sometimes, the umpire will call a pitch a strike even if it is six inches outside the zone. Other times, when the pitch is just inside the zone, the umpire will call it a ball.

I don’t know about you, but I enjoy watching the college baseball regionals on TV.

The one thing about watching those games is that there is no marked zone on the TV screen.

Some pitches, even ones that appear to be close either way, just don’t get the elicited catcalls from viewers because, honestly, we can’t tell if the pitch was a close strike or a close ball.

So we trust the umpire behind the plate, and it makes watching the game more enjoyable.

Obviously, the highlighted zone shows definitely where the pitch was, and to me, that’s the problem.

I know the networks will never eliminate that strike zone for viewers to see. But, I’d be willing to bet that MLB umpires would be under far less scrutiny than they are now.

Without a zone that shows you if the pitch is a ball or strike, we would probably rarely bemoan the calls unless, of course, a pitch call is that badly missed.

All I know is the college games are much better to watch and rarely do I hear umpires being berated.

• I know the UFL has been pleasantly surprised with its television ratings in its maiden season, getting numbers higher than predicted.

But something tells me Sunday evening’s game on Fox between Memphis and Houston didn’t help those ratings at all. After all, who wants to watch a pair of 1-8 teams close out the regular season?

• During the chill of February, I had a friend tell me that Bentworth’s softball team was going to be really good. He said the Bearcats were going to have one of the best hurlers in the WPIAL in freshman Sydney Gonglik.

I have heard these stories too many times to count over the years in various sports, how a certain freshman was going to dominate. Mostly, it was just overblown hype.

Not this time.

Gonglik is everything my friend said she was, and the Bearcats reached the WPIAL championship behind her solid pitching.

I never really looked at Bentworth as a softball powerhouse. But for the next three years as long as Gonglik is on the mound, the Bearcats will be a good bet to reach at least the semifinals, and possibly repeat in the championship game.

And don’t be surprised if the team doesn’t win one or two crowns.

• In nearly every game the Pirates play, there is solid evidence that the team is being mismanaged by Derek Shelton and his staff.

Whether it’s a boneheaded play in the field or on the bases, taking starting pitchers out too early, never starting the same lineup a second time in the season, keeping your “stud” player Oneil Cruz on the bench against left handed pitching or starting players hitting under .190 who shouldn’t even be on an MLB roster, Shelton hurts this team.

Even though I’ve said time and again that if the Pirates had two more decent hitters in their lineup they could compete, I’m just as sure as any credible baseball man with a good staff could fight for the NL Central pennant this year with the current roster as it is.

• Whatever happened to Chavas Rawlins?

• Count me among those who are sorry to see Janine Vertacnik resign as girls basketball coach at Monessen.

She did something I never thought I would see again and that’s raise that once-powerful program from the dead.

I never expected to see the Monessen girls near the top of the WPIAL rankings again.

I know Monessen is losing most of its starters to graduation, but I was curious to see how quickly she could reload that team. As it is, it was a job well done by her and her staff.

Anyone with any thoughts, opposing views or comments on this column can reach Jeff Oliver by emailing justjto@verizon.net.