Is there any sport in which an umpire or referee who is trying to make a close call on something or other (ie, strike vs ball) is allowed to just say “jeez, that was close, beats me. Let’s do it over”?
Would that be a good thing or a bad thing if it was allowed and occasionally happened?
I’m not sure if this is the same as what you’re suggesting, but umpires in cricket are allowed to refer certain decisions to an off field “third umpire” (there are two on the field) who watches a slow motion replay and decides.
In baseball a tie goes to the runner. So if a guy named Who catches a throw at the same time the runner steps on the bag, the runner is safe. No do over though.
There’s no such rule. That’s just sort of how it’s called/explained in Little League. I can’t think of an instance that fits the OP. That’s sort of the opposite of what you want an umpire to do.
I believe that in early versions of baseball that’s exactly how balls and strikes were called. Many (most?) pitches that weren’t swung at weren’t a ball or a strike. Only ones that were very hittable were strikes and only ones well wide were balls.
Basketball also has “no calls” on charging/blocking fouls. If there is contact but the ref can’t decide whether the defender was set or not they’ll sometimes just not call anything. I personally think that’s a bad thing for the sport, but YMMV. You also don’t get a “do-over” or anything like that.
Well live and learn. I don’t know how many times I’ve heard that thing. Interesting little piece here, apparently there’s no such thing as a tie in that situation.
I think they do that in fencing. The electric signal determines who hit first. It that is a tie the judge decides who started an attack first to give a point. But if he thinks that was a tie too, he just doesn’t give one.
Disclaimer. I am not an expert on fencing, just passing second hand of how it was explained to me.
I used to think that as well, but if you want to get technical, “tie goes to the runner” is in the rules:
In each case, the tag must be before the runner reaches a base, thus implying that if they happen at the same time, the runner is safe.
Somebody else mentioned one policy that most umpires use; “it’s never a tie.” (In the few games I have umpired, my policy was, “When in doubt, call 'em out.”)
As for sports where “maybe” or “I don’t know” is a call (other than ones like cricket and rugby where the official can defer to an instant replay official), the only one I could think of was fencing, especially back in the days before electronic touch detection. I think the phrase was, “Nothing Done.”
From the link above:
So it’s not clear in the rules. I think the ‘tie goes to the runner’ saying is a way to explain the tradional practice, but the umpire is supposed to be deciding who was first.
In NBA basketball, when the referees are unable to decide which player touched the ball last on an out-of-bounds call (and it’s not a reviewable play), they have the two players do a jump-ball. That’s close to a do-over. College ball uses that infernal possession arrow in the same situation.
Three umpires were at a bar and discussing the calling of balls and strikes.
The first umpire says, “I call 'em like I see 'em.”
The second ump responds, “I call 'em like they ARE.”
The third ump declares, “They AIN’T until I call 'em!”
But that’s really not helpful, because there are still going to be some plays that the ump confidently calls out, and some that the ump confidently calls safe, and given that time is a continuum, there have to be some calls where human perception is just not adequate to give the ump confidence in any direction… saying “tie goes to the runner” is like knowing whether foot-on-the-line counts as in bounds or out of bounds, but there will still be times when the ref just wasn’t quite sure whether the foot was on the line or not.
In any case, it appears to be the case that at least one factual answer to my question is Fencing, and another is out of bounds calls in NBA games. Interesting.
The most memorable thing I remember from umpiring school was the very clear instruction; “There are no ties in baseball, ever. One thing happened before the other, and it’s your job to correctly decide which one.”
In one of umpire Ron Luciano’s books, he tells the story of another minor league umpire doing a do-over on a sacrifice fly. He sent the runner to third. Not sure if the fielder was given a ball to hold and the ump said ‘go’ or someone tossed a ball to the fielder or what. I don’t recall, but I don’t think Luciano went into any detail over whether the league took action against the ump.
Ultimate (Frisbee) is a self-officiated sport. If one team calls a foul and the other team disputes the call, the disc is given back to the original thrower and they play from other (with the stall count at were it was when the first throw was made). In a recent thread a Doper mentioned that some very high-level leagues are moving to impartial officials, though.
Amusing anecdote: I once played in a pickup Ultimate game where a player called a foul on himself, but the victim of the foul disputed the call and said it was clean. In the end we decided that meant it was a rethrow.
There is a tie-breaker rule in football, on pass receptions: if both the offensive player and the defensive player come down with their hands on the ball, it’s an offensive reception, since the defence needs to break the offence’s possession of the ball to claim it. However, that’s not “too close to call” with a do-over; it’s a rule that awards the ball to the offence.
Curling is generally a self-officated sport as well, until you get to the higher levels. And even then there isn’t generally an official standing over everything watching every move and ruling on every play – the official is typically at arm’s length and only brought in to rule on close calls and technicalities.
I’ve heard anecdotally of one such instance in a bonspiel my dad was playing in years ago where the two teams couldn’t decide which team was counting, even after a measurement (in curling, the closest rock to the center of the rings scores in each end). Now, a typical curling measure these days is precise to within fractions of a centimetre, so usually it’s pretty clear once you get the stick out there who is closet to the pin. They brought in an official to redo the measurement and he also was unable to determine which rock was closest. So they declared that end a tie, nobody scored, and the game continued on as normal.
In horse racing, there is the concept of a “dead heat” - two (or more) horses are judged to have finished so nearly simultaneously that even with the normally available high-speed photo it is not possible to decide which was ahead.
Presumably this is possible in any kind of head-to-head race. Has there ever been a dead heat in Formula 1 or Nascar?
I don’t think there’s ever been a dead heat in Formula 1. Ferrarri did try to engineer one in 2002 but Barrichello was given the victory by a margin of one hundredth of a second. Here’s a 2008list of the 10 closest finishes up until that time.
Years ago I officiated volleyball, which has a lot of finicky rules, so I may not remember this precisely. But there was definitely a “replay” option the refs could use. The hand sign was two fists pressed together with the thumbs up. I think it was for times when there was only one “up” ref on a stand working without the usual “down” ref and two line judges. In that situation the ref could be screened from seeing certain plays and call a replay.