Maggie's Farm

Bad Calls in baseball, and in life

From Cafe Hayek:

Perfect justice means an infinite number of cameras with an infinite number of umpires conferring for an infinite amount of time to get it right.  And you would have to examine every play not just dramatic ones.  That is not an ideal, it's a curse.  It is the same force that partly explains our litigiousness and regulatory zeal.  Every inequality must be redressed.  Taken to an extreme, such a worldview inevitably puts more power in the hands of the arbiters (lawyers and politicians and umpires) at the expense of the other participants, including the fans.  It also changes the incentives.  It encourages participants to put in effort at pleasing or avoiding the arbiters in ways that are unhealthy.

Read entire. He is right, of course, but do not ever discount the enjoyable righteous indignation in booing a bad call. That's part of the fun of the game.