I am writing this as I am flying home to watch my Rays play in the World Series. I wonder what it would be like if umpires were selected by popular vote. In baseball, the umpires make the critical decisions of balls, strikes and outs. Their close calls effect the outcome of games, without question.
I wonder if we would trust a system whereby major league baseball umpires were chosen through an election system? I doubt it. Most of us would not trust other fans to make unbiased decisions and would be worried others would vote for umpires who favor their favorite team.
I am writing this as I am flying home to watch my Rays play in the World Series. I wonder what it would be like if umpires were selected by popular vote. In baseball, the umpires make the critical decisions of balls, strikes and outs. Their close calls effect the outcome of games, without question.
I wonder if we would trust a system whereby major league baseball umpires were chosen through an election system? I doubt it. Most of us would not trust other fans to make unbiased decisions and would be worried others would vote for umpires who favor their favorite team.
Yet, in Florida the people calling the balls, strikes and outs when the game is "for real" are determined by election. I wonder why we should trust our legal system "umpires" to be selected by a popularity contest when we would not trust baseball "judges" selected the same way?
I bet if we elected baseball umpires, there would be a lot more pretty faces behind the plate. I say that because people vote for women, qualified or not, to be a judge more often than they vote for men. Many lawyers have commented on this over the past decade. A very experienced and qualified lawyer in our firm, Woody Isom, lost a judicial election to a less experienced woman. I guess that benefitted me because he then came to work with us.
The St. Petersburg Times ran a story indicating that my impression was statistically correct. The article, "Gender May Trump Cash," noted "women seem to have an extra edge in judicial elections." Women lawyers running for judge won 78% of their races. A female judge admitted that women get more votes simply because of a gender bias.
Perhaps this is a balancing of past discrimination against women. Maybe we should consider elections for Major League Baseball. I bet most men would not mind for a minute voting for women over some of those beer belly umpires. The women would probably make better calls on the diamond as they so often do in the Courtroom.
