Bruce Dowbiggin
Punch Out: Time To Go Virtual On Balls And Strikes

Former MLB catcher Gregg Zaun was a young player working behind the plate in a 1980s game umpired by the gruff Ken Kaiser (who moonlighted as a wrestler for a time). Zaun was trying to help his pitcher on the Baltimore Orioles by framing pitchers that Kaiser might like.
On a call that Zaun and his pitcher both wanted called a strike— but the veteran ump Kaiser called a ball— the budding catcher, without turning around, inquired, “Where was that pitch, Mr. Kaiser?”
Kaiser replied, “Son, I just call ‘em. I don’t describe ‘em.”
There is power in sports. And then there is umpire power. As we have seen in the 2021 postseason, the ability of a single umpire behind home to shape an outcome is tremendous. That authority comes from the century before hi-tech allowed TV broadcasters to show a virtual strike zone on screen.
If the ump called it a strike, it was a strike. Despite volcanic eruptions from mangers liker Earl Weaver and generations of players blowing off steam there was no recourse. Eventually players were forced to put their bat on their shoulder and walk back to the dugout. Or to the clubhouse, if their tantrum got them tossed from the game.
Rarely was an umpire publicly fired. Unless it was Dave Pallone who was apparently canned for being gay and upsetting Pete Rose in the days when Rose was an MLB big shot. Certainly none of them were held to any standard in terms of fitness.
Now, however, the fan can see the virtual strike zone. And can see that an umpire like Laz Diaz, who was behind home plate for the Astros 9-2 win over the Red Sox in Game 4 of the ALCS, needs to be cashiered. This allows reporter/ author Jeff Passan to tweet:
@jeffpassan Home-plate umpire Laz Diaz has missed 21 ball-strike calls tonight, according to @ESPNStatsInfo. That is the most of any umpire this postseason. The green dot in the upper RH corner is the Eovaldi curveball that would’ve ended top of the ninth with the score 2-2.
The game was no exception for Diaz. As our friends at @umpscorecards show that Diaz missed almost ten percent of his ball/strike calls on average during the season (91.9%). One game he called only 87.6 percent of calls correctly.
Which is not to single out Diaz. For instance, Angel Hernandez missed 356 of the 4833 pitches he called this season for 92.6% accuracy. Brian O’Nora (91.8% accuracy), Jerry Meals (93%), Rob Drake (92.1%), CB Buckner (92.7%) Doug Eddings (92.6%), Larry Vanover (92.5%), Ron Kulpa (91.8%) and the legend Joe West (92.2%) are among the many who leave something to be desired. (We highly recommend following this detailed site if you are a fan or a bettor.)
While the average ball/ strike accuracy in the wider echelon of umpires hovers in the 92-95 percent range, even the best umpires have single games where their accuracy is in the mid-to-high 80s. Were those games that decided playoff spots? Division titles? Pitchers/ batters getting bonuses? Why did MLB not enforce a higher standard?
Look, 92-95 percent for the human eye in a stressful situation where 50,000 people are screaming at you is an impressive stat. And the umpiring today is scrutinized heavily by MLB for patterns that might produce betting scandals. There’s no doubt that the ball/ strike calling is vastly improved from Kaiser’s day when there were “pitchers’ umps” and “hitters umps”.
(Aside: On a Blue Jays TV broadcast this season former MLB catcher Buck Martinez and sidekick Pat Tabler, a former outfielder, seemed to pine for the days when umps’ expanded strike zones encouraged players to “get the bat swinging” and reduced hitters working counts.)
But the virtual stroke zone shows MLB can have 100 percent accuracy to a defined strike zone. Not to put @umpscorecards out of work, but with a virtual strike zone MLB has the power to remove doubt about the strike zone, end arguments and conspiracies about certain umps and make the games move faster.
One only need look at the Hawkeye system at work now in tennis for calling lines. The days of John McEnroe or Jimmy Connors going ballistic over a line call have magically ended as the computer unequivocally demonstrates that a ball is in or out. The sideshow of rage has now become a shrug of the shoulders as the affected player moves on to the next point, angry at themselves, not the chair umpire or line official.
There are other pluses. Frankly who is also not happy to forgo the site of middle-aged tennis officials at Wimbledon or Roland Garros stuffed into tight pants and clingy blouses like sausage rolls, looming over the court like people waiting for the kettle to boil. Other than an ad for Weight Watchers it’s a sight we can consign to the past.
So why doesn’t MLB use the tech they’ve got? Some suggest they’re leery of upsetting the influential umpires union who guard their privilege zealously, even in the face of some completely useless colleagues. Other still hold with the dinosaurs who say the virtual strike zone is inaccurate or can move unexpectedly.
This just in: Even if the virtual strike zone is off an inch or two it’s the same standard for both pitchers and all hitters. There’s also no need to put people out of work. The home-plate ump can still make calls on foul tips, swinging strikes, plays at the plate and the running of the game. Enough already.
While MLB is at it, use the Hawkeye system for foul lines, foul poles and outfield fences, too. The technology is there. Forget the 19th century nostalgia.
Addendum: The Atlanta Braves toppling of the mighty Dodgers is genuine MLB karma for Atlanta. You may remember that commissioner Rob Manfred acquiesced to the Woke mob this summer when Georgia instituted stricter laws for voter authenticity that require photo ID. In a panic to seem progressive he took the All Star Game away from Atlanta and awarded it to Denver.
Mostly is it was another Hate Trump ploy to curry favour with the Media Party that broadcasts his games. Now Atlanta gets the World Series. Hope they remind the precious people everyday what those bastards did to them and rub it in mercilessly. Hope Manfred gets asked for his ID everywhere he goes. Other than that, we’re fine with it.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster (http://www.notthepublicbroadcaster.com). The best-selling author of Cap In Hand is also a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book with his son Evan is called InExact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History is now available on http://brucedowbigginbooks.ca/book-personalaccount.aspx
Bruce Dowbiggin
FUBAR: How Trudeau & Trump Rewrote This Century’s Political Handbook

Let’s ignore the roar this month and take a spin in the Wayback machine to a decade ago this week. Both the U.S. and Canada were on the precipice of momentous decisions WITH new leaders who resonate today. In both cases those leaders, for better or worse, changed politics irrevocably. They are going to be the most impactful people of their century so far. One made his party into the Official Monster Raving Loony Party. While the other brought populist nativism and reality TV to the voters.
So who’s crying now? In the case of Donald Trump this week marks a decade since his descent on the gold escalator in his NYC tower. As this shows, most of the popular press were amused by the decision of the mogul/ TV star to seek the GOP leadership and, eventually, the presidency. They laughed. Oh, how they laughed.
In the minds of the DC media party, the 2016 election was going to be Jeb Bush, brother of George W. and son of George H.W., for the GOP. He would run against Hillary Clinton, the DEMs slam-dunk candidate. So why was Trump wasting his money on a “vanity” candidacy? Anyone with a brain could see he was throwing away his money. The media, who’d been his pal, felt pity.
Except we now know that Trump had identified a significant segment of the GOP voting population who were mad as hell and were not going to buy Jeb’s “compassionate” approach or Marco Rubio’s DC-centric policies. They wanted to close the border, stop foreign wars and protect U.S. industry. To, ahem, Make America Great Again.
The rest is history. Into this void Trump launched a MAGA movement that terrified the establishment. Where once he’d been on their talk shows, making wise with big shots and dining out on “You’re fired”, he was now the target of a massive smear campaign alleging racism, sexism, homophobia and leaving the toilet seat up. None of it worked as it was supposed to. In fact, his obstinacy in the face of it all endeared him to his followers.

Trump won a historic victory over Clinton in 2016, absorbed four years of impeachment, criminal charges, Russia collusion hoaxes and more. Buttressed by MAGA, he outlasted them all, Then COVID hit, the DEMs “found” 17 million “new” voters , and it seemed Trump was a spent force.
Not so fast. Having spent all their energies on replacing Trump with a man with the mental capacities of a carrot, the DEMs and their followers were left with Kamala Harris. IOW nothing. Then came the thunderbolt of Elon Musk buying Twitter (now X) breaking the legacy media’s stranglehold on information. People learned how the media grandees had cooked the books. Unable to control the press Trump’s fanatical opponents resorted to hoping someone would shoot Trump. Even that failed. Twice.
Now we have Trump.2. His legacy is still under siege from his enemies and some of his former friends. He’s stage managing a potential nuclear war with Iran. He’s redefining the world economy. He’s cutting the financial ties that support radical political action. He’s still furiously tweeting. It could all go terribly wrong.
But the fact remains. Love him or hate him, he’s the most impactful American in the 21st century. His polling is better than in 2016. A random sample of his hubris, here’s this note threatening Khameini while adding, “thank you for your attention in this matter”. Incorrigible.

Put simply, he has changed how politics functions in the America. Just ask these Bush Republicans. His audacity and pitiless style— thought to be political poison— have re-written the book on what works. Politics will never ever be the same down south.
The same can be said for the style of Justin Trudeau, scion to the legacy of his father. He, too, was dismissed as a lightweight when he made this political aspirations clear. While Trump could at least cite his business and TV career, Trudeau’s resume was wafer thin. Ski instructor. One-term drama teacher. A fanciful D’Artagnan he posed and preened for the cameras. A combination of his mother’s intellect and his father’s vanity he could easily have crashed and burned.
But by 2015 his father’s Liberal party was in big trouble. On the heels of the sponsorship scandal, they tried re-create PET in Stephane Dion and Michael Ignatieff. Bad idea. In the face of extinction, all it had was Trudeau’s vedette appeal and a population bored with Stephen Harper. Lucky for Liberals, Canada’s elites craved the novelty of Boy Trudeau on the cover of GQ.
Trudeau played the Sunny Ways card into a decade as Canada’s PM. His modest accomplishments— a dental plan, assisted suicide— were buried in three Woke terms of climate hysteria, corruption, fake Rez murder genocide, creating a real-estate bubble economy, allowing China to set up a money-laundering in the major cities and the explosion of drug trafficking to where the fentanyl El Chapo and his pals took up residence in Toronto. The RCMP were discouraged from investigating any and all his uglier conflicts.
His three successful elections owed a lot to mediocre CPC leaders and a perpetual fear— stoked by friendly media— that Trump would get them all killed. He was also buoyed by a Family Compact that sloughed off his many gaffes— standing O for a Nazi in Parliament?— while portraying Pierre Poilievre as a robotic Trump clone.

Like Trump, Trudeau defined a style of politics for Boomer Canada, long on Woke platitudes, short on concrete policy. When CDNs showed they didn’t care about defence, balancing budgets or rule of law in those three votes, Trudeau took the hint. He squashed the Truckers, forfeited their savings, locked them in prison for “mischief”. And got the NDP to go along.
When his own bill finally came due, he skedaddled to a cozy pension and an afterlife in the ranks of international NGOs. Leaving Mark Carney a toxic legacy. Leftist politicians will be trying to emulate his escape act for decades.
Right-wing politicians will do the same after Trump. Some might even be Trumps themselves. So dismiss these two at your peril. For their nations and the world they called the shot. Bullseye.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
Bruce Dowbiggin
WOKE NBA Stars Seems Natural For CDN Advertisers. Why Won’t They Bite?

The wonderful people who brought you Elbows Up and Don’t Shop At Home Depot! are now on to Edmonton Oilers Bring Home The Cup. In response to no Canadian-based team winning the Stanley Cup since 1993 the corporate nostalgia folks are linking arms with Connor McDavid & Co in their struggle with the dastardly Florida Panthers. The Oil are now Canada’s team!
In one bit they were taking ice shavings from McDavid’s home rink in southern Ontario to mix with the frozen Zamboni water of Edmonton’s Rogers Place arena. Okay, they have eight players on the Oilers roster who aren’t Canadian (hello Leon Draisaitl), and the stars now killing it for the Panthers, Sam Bennett and Brad Marchand, are from Ontario. But never mind. Like playing Mr. Dressup trivia with Mike Meyers it’s just too good an idea to waste.
The outcome of all this patriotic wind therapy will be determined Tuesday— or Thursday at the latest. But it will have achieved the desired goal of warming the cockles of all those Canadians who turtled in the election, flipping back to Mark Carney’s Liberals when the going got a little rough with Donald Trump. Resulting in a maximum four more years of Carney’s faculty lounge of dunces and Kamala Harris clones.
While the marketers were playing the Maple Syrup March over the Stanley Cup Final they missed an even better opportunity to marry Canadian patriotism with sport. We speak, of course, of the inevitable crowning of Canadian stars as champions of the NBA. In fact the entire progress of the postseason in the sneaker league has witnessed great Canadian results.
Not least of which: Hamilton’s Shai Gilgeous Alexander winning the NBA MVP while leading his Oklahoma City Thunder to the brink of the NBA crown. For those distracted by Stu Skinner and Corey Perry, SGA is a revelation, If you missed him leading Canada back to the Olympics last year the wiry 26-year-old is a lithe, unstoppable chinook who routinely scores 30 points a game.

He has help from another Canadian, Montreal’s Lu Dort, a finalist for NBA defensive player of the year, who also led Canada to the Olympics. As unstoppable as SGA is, Dort is immovable. But that’s not all the Canadian content. In the Finals they are up against two more Canadian teammates from last year. Aurora Ont.’s Andrew Nembhard is the back-court catalyst for Tyrese Haliburton’s Indian Pacers, taking them to the Eastern title and within two wins of the NBA title. He’s assisted by another Canadian, Montreal’s Benedict Mathurin, the hero of the Game 3 win for the Pacers. They’re now household names.

The Canadian content didn’t end there, either. In the semifinals, the Thunder beat the Minnesota Timberwolves featuring SGA’s cousin Nickeil Alexander-Walker , another alumnus of the CDN national team. At one point the two close friends were anything but friendly, shoving each other under the basket.
They had Canadian company in the postseason. In earlier rounds R.J. Barrett and the New York Knicks made it to the second round in the East, Jamal Murray’s Denver Nuggets fell to the Thunder in Round Two, while the Houston Rockets and Mississauga’s Dillon Brooks, a tenacious physical presence, lost to Steph Curry’s Golden State Warriors . Meanwhile, Corey Joseph’s Orlando Magic lost in the first round to Boston.
But the Canadian content didn’t end there. The Toronto Raptors, NBA champs of 2019, are now spread throughout the league, affording nostalgic Canadian fans a rooting playoff interest in players such as Pascal Siakim, who’s pairing with Nembhard and Mathurin to push the upset-minded Pacers, shooting guard OG Anunoby teamed with small forward R.J. Barrett on the Knicks and point guard Fred Van Vliet of the Rockets. All harkened back to the Raptors’ greatest days.
But in the heat of Elbows Up marketing these great performances don’t seem to get a sniff from marketers looking to promote Canadian unity in these fractious days. While the sports networks give airtime to the stories in the Association. the general public and advertisers have little time or inclination to draw patriotic strength from these young men.
Before we completely condemn Canadian marketers it should be noted that the interest in the NBA in general is waning. The NBA has lost 75 percent of its TV audience since the Michael Jordan peak while many other sports — NFL, men’s & women’s college basketball, college football — have set record TV ratings. Yes, TV ratings in many fields have dropped since the 1990s. Still, it seems significant.
The problem for the NBA in a Time of Trump is its embrace of hard-left politics. Whether it’s LeBron James defending Chinese shoe manufacturers, the slavish devotion to #BLM even as its corruption is revealed and a maniacal obsession with Donald Trump (and embrace of Kamala Harris) the NBA has made its bed with radical political and cultural elements. It’s as if the Trump election and cultural shift never happened.
In this wilful blindness they are supported by their media partners whose own credibility is at an all-time low after carrying water for the Biden farce and Kamala’s erasure. Ironically, this is the same political crash car running Canadian politics at the moment. You’d think that would make the NBA— and its sister Women’s NBA—like catnip to the Canada Not For Sale crew.
So far the hockey quest is foremost in their minds. But perhaps when SGA holds the Larry O’Brien Trophy they might just achieve the symbiosis that the sport has always coveted.
Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster, his new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.
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