Protesting Protests

Has anyone else noticed that when Major League Baseball teams file an "official protest" of the outcome of a game, it almost never amounts to anything?

The latest instance of this occurred on Monday July 6th, when Derek Jeter was called out trying to steal third base in the first inning of a game vs. the Toronto Blue Jays. Jeter was clearly safe, but the umpire called him out, and according to Jeter, told him that "the ball beat him". The rule in this case of course, is that Jeter needed to be tagged to be out, but the umpire seemed to have forgotten that rule.

Yankees manager Joe Girardi argued, was thrown out of the game, and later decided to file an "official protest" of the game's outcome. That protest, like almost all others, was denied. And it should have been. If teams were allowed to protest every game in which an umpire make a bad call, the outcome of every game would in question.

The point I'd like to make here is, why allow protests at all? Human error is a part of the game, and errors by umpires happen all the time. It's a waste of the League President's time to rule on protests, and it's a waste of our time to hear about them.

The only game protest that I ever recall resulting in an umpire's ruling being overturned is the "Pine Tar Game", July 23rd, 1983 at Yankee Stadium. George Brett of the Kansas City Royals was called out by home plate umpire Tim McClelland for having too much pine tar on his bat after hitting a home run in the 9th inning (and famously went ballistic). American League President Lee McPhail overturned the umpires decision and the game was resumed a few weeks later (the Yankees lost). It was a bad decision then, and it still is. Brett broke the rules, and the ump's call should have stood.

So please consider this my "official protest" of baseball protests. They just water down the purity of the game, and make the umpires look terrible. It's bad enough we now have crystal clear HDTV replays to magnify the umpires mistakes. We certainly don't have to "protest the game" and zoom the microscope in on them even further.