I always see clips of baseball players arguing with a referee and then getting ejected, but I’ve never once seen a coach or player convince a referee they’re wrong.
Why bother? Surely you know that you’re not gonna change their mind and that you can get ejected pretty easily and that gotta be worse than stifling your ego for a moment just copping the decision.
I’m Australian and don’t really watch baseball so I apologise if any nomenclature is incorrect.
In: 23
In baseball, we call them umpires, not referees.
They argue because they think the call was wrong (and, if they argue to the point of being ejected, they’re often right about the call being wrong) and negatively impacts them in the game. You don’t get ejected for arguing the call, unless you go too far or embarrass the umpire. It’s an instinct, I suppose, to try to advocate for yourself when you’re being unfairly punished, like when the umpire calls strike three on a pitch by your ankles that you didn’t swing at. MLB now has replay review, so a manager can actually formally challenge a call they think is bad.
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