Umpires Are Intent on Making New Strike Zone the Letters of the Law

Baseball has a new strike zone. After much grumbling, the players’ union OK’d it--for a one-year trial--last Friday.

Everybody’s holding his breath. Why? Because nobody knows for sure if The Zone will, in fact, get bigger, smaller or stay the same. Baseball, the sport in which the war between pitcher and hitter is almost everything, has no more basic or controversial issue.

On paper, as written in the new rules, the strike zone is now several inches smaller at the top. In reality, major-league umpiring supervisors say the new rule will probably make the strike zone several inches bigger and help beleaguered pitchers who gave up record numbers of home runs in 1987.

Sound like a paradox? It is. And a Pandora’s box of possibilities, too.

The top of the old traditional zone was defined as “batter’s armpits.”

The new top of the strike zone is defined as--and this one’s a mouthful--”a horizonal line at the midpoint between the top of the shoulders and the top of the uniform pants.”

“It’s the nipple line,” said Ed Vargo, supervisor of National League umpires, “but they didn’t want to put ‘nipple line’ in the rule book.”

Think of it as mid-torso or bottom of the letters and you’re close.

Now, here comes the beautiful--or awful--part of the new rule. The real purpose of the new rule is to expand the strike zone, rather than shrink it.

“The way the old rule was written, it was unenforceable,” said Marty Springstead, supervisor or American League umpires. “Nobody can hit a pitch that’s really armpit-high and no umpire ever called that pitch, or anything close to it, a strike. Hell, the whole league’s batting average would be about .190. So, over the years, every umpire had to define the top of the strike zone his own way. That’s inconsistent.”

In recent years the strike zone of most umpires tended to get lower--in effect, from the top of the belt to the bottom of the knees. By the last three years, as home run totals rocketed, the zone has gotten so small that pitchers felt squeezed, games took too long (with lots of long counts and walks) and hitters were having a field day.

The “high, hard one” was becoming an endangered species.

“In my prime, I don’t know if I could have been effective with the strike zone they’ve called the last few years,” said ex-Baltimore pitcher Jim Palmer who lived by the rising fastball that started belt-high, then seemed to explode up to the letters.

The gut-high fastball, entirely above the belt, but essentially below the letters, is the pitch that baseball’s brass wants to put back into the pitcher’s repertoire.

“That’s a hittable pitch, not a ridiculous pitch,” Springstead said.

“I know what they want,” Pirates’ Manager Chuck Tanner said. “To speed up the game and bring the game back into (offensive-vs.-defensive) balance. But I can’t tell yet who it will help.”

Guess what? Hitters think the umpires are calling more strikes. But pitchers, like Scott McGregor, see no change. “No difference at all,” McGregor maintained. “If you’re consistent (with the high fastball), they’ll give it to you, just like they always would.”

“It won’t be a drastic change right away,” Springstead said. “Umpires have lifelong habits that will be hard to change, no matter what the rule says. But it’ll change things over a period of time. The kid umpire in the minors now has a strike zone that makes sense; he can defend it. Before, ‘armpits’ made no (realistic) sense. The kid (ump) gets confused and says, ‘I’ll pick the belt. That’s a simple way out.’ ”

To complicate matters, the union could vote out the new rule after the 1988 season. But the owners could unilaterally restore the rule in 1990 and keep it there permanently. But let’s not worry about that now.

Perhaps the most dispiriting voice to surface is that of Vargo, who said, “I have seen a difference. A lot of umps are calling that (above the belt) pitch a strike. . . . But it’s probably a fad. It’ll fade. I don’t think it’ll have much effect. . . . People think an umpire’s strike zone is a real precise thing.

“Don’t make me laugh. That ball is going almost 100 miles an hour. You call it on instinct and experience. I was considered a damn good ball-and-strike ump, but I couldn’t tell you what my strike zone was.

“A hitter would say, ‘Where was that pitch?’ I’d say, ‘Right there. In the zone.’ If he said, ‘Where in the zone?’ I’d say, ‘My eyes aren’t that good. And they’re better than yours.’ ”

Vargo agreed that having A.L. umps switch to an inside chest protector has brought the two leagues imperceptably close in their respective strike zones and that inside protectors make lower pitches easier to see, and, therefore, easier to call strikes.

However, on one point he’s defiantly old school. Umpires tend to be belligerent mystics who refuse to define or explain their craft. You’re as likely to get a magician to explain a shaved deck with magnetized cards.

“There’s no such thing as the strike zone. It’s too tough. How can you say, ‘That’s a half-inch outside,’ ” Vargo said. “Every umpire has his own. His job is to be consistent calling his zone.”

And, in turn, the player’s job is to learn all the different umpires.

Baseball’s best case scenario is that umps will do what the Rules Committee intended-call strikes on pitches that are a few inches above the belt as the hitter is swinging.

Roger Clemens and Dwight Gooden, whose best fastballs now tend to be knee-high or on the belt buckle, may discover that they have a new and marvelous option.

The worst-case scenario--and few if any predict it--is that some umpires, perhaps through grouchiness, might call an even smaller strike zone and justify it on the grounds that the rules have lowered the zone.

What is most likely is that a few more high strikes will gradually be called. Over the next several years, umpires, especially new ones, may rediscover the strike zone of 15 years ago.

And pitchers, properly encouraged by that wonderful word “Steeeerike,” will once again become enthusiastic about recapturing the old-fashioned glory of the legendary high, hard one.

Maybe Jim Palmer will even consider a comeback.