Umpires Make Their Pitch With Grievance

Umpires, believing owners are looking over their shoulders too much, filed a grievance to keep the commissioner’s office from pressuring them to reduce the pitches in their games, saying management’s move “threatens the integrity of the game.”

The grievance, filed late Saturday, says the commissioner’s office violated the umpires’ new labor contract by keeping track of the average number of pitches in games worked behind the plate by each umpire and ranking each umpire in that category.

“If you have good pitchers pitching, there will be fewer pitches thrown, but if the pitchers are struggling, we can’t control that,” umpire Randy Marsh said. “If the pitch is a strike, it’s a strike, and if it’s a ball, it’s a ball.”

Larry Gibson, a lawyer for the umpires, notified baseball of the grievance in a three-page letter he faxed Saturday to the commissioner’s office.

“The union has learned that the office of the commissioner believes the average to be around 285 pitches in a nine-inning game,” Gibson wrote. “Umpires are being told that this number is too high and to ‘bring your pitch count down’ to 270 pitches a game.”

Gibson wrote that umpires have been told to “call more strikes,” “be aggressive” and to “hunt for strikes. The pitch count, whether or not it is coupled with a direct instruction to call more strikes, interferes with an umpires’ duty to exercise independent judgment on each pitch.”

The labor contract calls for the sides to meet on the issue. If they can’t resolve it, the case would go to an arbitrator selected from a list provided by the American Arbitration Assn.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” Sandy Alderson, executive vice president of baseball operations in the commissioner’s office, said Sunday when told of the grievance by a reporter.

Larry Barnett, one of baseball’s umpire supervisors, retired July 6, partly because of the pitch-count pressure.

“I just didn’t feel I could go that direction,” said Barnett, whose retirement was first reported by the New York Times on its Web site Sunday night.

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Joe Torre denied that owner George Steinbrenner told him not to take too many Yankees to the All-Star game.

Torre, speaking to reporters before the Yankees played the Philadelphia Phillies at Veterans Stadium Sunday, said Steinbrenner in the past has expressed concern over how many Yankees went to the All-Star game.

“He didn’t tell me that this year,” Torre said. “He likes to see a lot of guys make it because it’s a credit to the team, but he also wants them to rest.”

Steinbrenner, in Florida on Saturday to watch two of his horses race at Calder racetrack, questioned whether Torre made the right decision by selecting seven Yankees because the team lost its first two games after the break to the Florida Marlins by a combined score of 20-4.

“The All-Star game has turned into too much of a festival,” Steinbrenner said in Sunday’s Newsday. “I told Torre he shouldn’t have taken so many people for the team. They looked like they needed sleep. Winning the World Series is what’s important, not the All-Star game.”

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John Smoltz, apparently gearing up for a return in the Atlanta Braves’ bullpen, will begin a rehab assignment Tuesday with double-A Greenville. He is scheduled to pitch one inning in relief both Tuesday and Wednesday when the Southern League team plays Jacksonville.

Smoltz has been on the disabled list since June 10 withbecause of a sore right elbow. He sat out all of last season after undergoing reconstructive surgery and made only five starts this season before inflammation in the elbow and shoulder resulted in him being put on the disabled list.

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Boston Red Sox pitcher Bret Saberhagen allowed one run in 3 2/3 innings of a rehabilitation start for double-A Trenton.

Saberhagen, 37, gave up five hits and a walk against Portland. He struck out three.