Eli5 Why do baseball players & coaches always argue with the referee?

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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.

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54 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Humans aren’t perfect and any time you leave something up for interpretation there are going to be errors and poor judgement calls. Ideally we’d want a game that was perfectly refereed, but that will never happen with humans. As things go a referee will almost never (and really never should) change their call once it has been made, especially because someone didn’t like said call. That isn’t the real reason you go up and argue though… You go up and argue to try and change the referee’s mind which happens often honestly even if the call doesn’t change. Because at that point the referee knows a mistake has been made and often times this gives you some wiggle room later.

I play hockey so for me using a hockey example is a little bit easier to explain. Let’s say you have a player who gets called for tripping. A lot of times this is going to be a judgement call like was it intentional or was the defender making a play on the puck? So your team captain goes up to the referee to state his case about how he was making a play and it’s a bad call. Referee see’s his point and starts to doubt his own call but the point stands the penalty is given and the game goes on. Now 10 minutes later we have a situation where the same thing happens except this time it looks more like tripping than before. If it isn’t egregious and obviously a flagrant attempt, the referee is more likely to let this go because he “owes” them for the previous bad call. It’s not a rule set in stone or anything but it’s an attempt for the referee to make the game as “fair” as possible. So if they made a bad call that hurt you they may let you get away with a little more to “even it out” later.

If you don’t go up and argue with the ref then they might not think it was a bad call which means you don’t get the benefit of the doubt later.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Another reason which hasn’t been mentioned here is that coaches are under a lot of scrutiny to show that they’re doing everything in their power to help their team win.

A coach that simply accepts an unfavorable call from an umpire might be perceived as lazy or permissive, and not having his teams best interest in mind.

It cost nothing to go tell the umpire he’s wrong, but it might cost the coach his job to accept it and do nothing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Another reason which hasn’t been mentioned here is that coaches are under a lot of scrutiny to show that they’re doing everything in their power to help their team win.

A coach that simply accepts an unfavorable call from an umpire might be perceived as lazy or permissive, and not having his teams best interest in mind.

It cost nothing to go tell the umpire he’s wrong, but it might cost the coach his job to accept it and do nothing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Humans aren’t perfect and any time you leave something up for interpretation there are going to be errors and poor judgement calls. Ideally we’d want a game that was perfectly refereed, but that will never happen with humans. As things go a referee will almost never (and really never should) change their call once it has been made, especially because someone didn’t like said call. That isn’t the real reason you go up and argue though… You go up and argue to try and change the referee’s mind which happens often honestly even if the call doesn’t change. Because at that point the referee knows a mistake has been made and often times this gives you some wiggle room later.

I play hockey so for me using a hockey example is a little bit easier to explain. Let’s say you have a player who gets called for tripping. A lot of times this is going to be a judgement call like was it intentional or was the defender making a play on the puck? So your team captain goes up to the referee to state his case about how he was making a play and it’s a bad call. Referee see’s his point and starts to doubt his own call but the point stands the penalty is given and the game goes on. Now 10 minutes later we have a situation where the same thing happens except this time it looks more like tripping than before. If it isn’t egregious and obviously a flagrant attempt, the referee is more likely to let this go because he “owes” them for the previous bad call. It’s not a rule set in stone or anything but it’s an attempt for the referee to make the game as “fair” as possible. So if they made a bad call that hurt you they may let you get away with a little more to “even it out” later.

If you don’t go up and argue with the ref then they might not think it was a bad call which means you don’t get the benefit of the doubt later.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Another reason which hasn’t been mentioned here is that coaches are under a lot of scrutiny to show that they’re doing everything in their power to help their team win.

A coach that simply accepts an unfavorable call from an umpire might be perceived as lazy or permissive, and not having his teams best interest in mind.

It cost nothing to go tell the umpire he’s wrong, but it might cost the coach his job to accept it and do nothing.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Gets in the umpires head a bit, sometimes if the team is playing poorly the manager will argue just so he can get ejected and hopefully fire up his players by showing that he’s got their backs.

It’s generally just arguing for the sake of arguing though, it doesn’t usually accomplish much. Just a way for the player or manager to let off some steam really.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Gets in the umpires head a bit, sometimes if the team is playing poorly the manager will argue just so he can get ejected and hopefully fire up his players by showing that he’s got their backs.

It’s generally just arguing for the sake of arguing though, it doesn’t usually accomplish much. Just a way for the player or manager to let off some steam really.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Gets in the umpires head a bit, sometimes if the team is playing poorly the manager will argue just so he can get ejected and hopefully fire up his players by showing that he’s got their backs.

It’s generally just arguing for the sake of arguing though, it doesn’t usually accomplish much. Just a way for the player or manager to let off some steam really.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Your life consists of making tens of millions of dollars to hit/catch a ball and work out. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to just make shit up to get mad at.

Anonymous 0 Comments

Your life consists of making tens of millions of dollars to hit/catch a ball and work out. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to just make shit up to get mad at.