Perspective of a sir
Gents of the B.A.V.B.B.,
I have been thinking for some time, what it is that discomforts me about Sir’ing BAVBB. Thing is, I don’t mind Sir’ing, and since it’s necessary that someone do it, and it allows me to stay connected with base ball and my friends until I get my knee right and my body fit again to play — dare to dream — I am happy to do it. I’ve haven’t been able to put my finger on exactly what makes me a grumpy Sir at times, but I think this is fairly close to describing it; bear with me:
In B.A.V.B.B. we expect certain mistakes and accept them as “part of the game.” Specifically, things like dropping fly balls or pop-ups, fumbling grounders, air mailing first base, dropped third strikes, Etc. We generally do not call out these errors or cast aspersions toward the player who makes them, unless it’s perhaps a base running mistake or an unnecessary throw, or not backing up or covering a base, aka a “mental error;” in which the player contravenes general principles or coach’s instructions.
Otherwise, and in my experience, and aside from a few grumblings here and there, the league is tolerant of mistakes in the field, and teammates are often encouraging towards the player. Same with hurlers who can’t find the plate or get shelled. I’ve seen many, been one, and in my experience, that hurler receives encouragement from his teammates, and rarely any stick from the opposing bench.
So … why would we not extend the same generosity of spirit toward the Sir? If you think of the Sir as he was cast in 1886, he was a local person who knew the rules and could be trusted to be fair and impartial. There is nothing that says he’s required to explain his strike zone to, say, the third baseman, who doesn’t feel that the Sir’s strike zone comports precisely with his interpretation and confronts the Sir between innings or even after the game for an explication. Nor does the Sir have to explain between innings that the infield fly rule wasn’t invented until 1895, when the Sir just wants to make the tally on the scoreboard and jog over to have a sip of Gatorade between half-innings. Some calls do require some head-banging with the captains over rules, like interference/obstruction and complicated things like that, but balls and strikes and offer and foul tip and fair-unfair or safe-out at a bag when we have the gentleman’s rule — no.
In my experience, the Sir doesn’t tell a second baseman he should have caught that easy pop-up. Or that the hurler shouldn’t have thrown that ball into the stands because that guy at first was never going to steal. Or that the striker took a gorgeous first strike like a mug, then buckled his knees at a curve ball, also like a mug, then looked at a pitch over the outside corner. The Sir doesn’t trash talk the players for sucking. I believe we should view it as part of the game that we expect the Sir to be as fallible as the players but try his best, and that the captains explain just that to the players. If more people volunteer their services, then captains can choose from the available Sirs the one their team finds amenable or least fallible, and then everyone gets on with the game according to the parameters set by that decision.
The Sir should be a beacon, a rock in the maelstrom of a vintage game, but that doesn’t mean he has hawkeye laser visuals and enough RAM for the count, the number of hands, which zone the striker called, who’s on first, etc. and still be able to pull obscure rules out of his robot arse on a moment’s notice — and all on minimum wage. The Sir has never been and will never be perfect, and you can't please all the people all of the time.
Anyhow, alls I’m saying is I remember yesterday Jumbo was hitting and it may have been after he got beaned, maybe before, but the Pacs were winning and the hurler was struggling and Jumbo took a rip at a 6-0 pitch. That, to me, is B.A.V.B.B. spirit.
— Toro