The Pecan Park Eagle

Former Astros player and general manager Bob Watson now serves as Major League Baseball's vice president of rules and on-field operations.

What a night we had!

The November 8, 2011 meeting of SABR at the Ragin’ Cajun restaurant in Houston gave all of us who came the chance to be enthralled by the storytelling ability of Mr. Bob Watson. The former Astros Player and general manager now works for the Commissioner’s MLB office as the vice president of rules and on-field regulations. We spent the evening just trying to absorb all the information and great storytelling that pours from this great baseball man like water arches flow from some ancient urban fountain.

The man knows his stuff.

Watson challenged us too. He asked: “What is the rule governing checked swings?”

None of us answered.

Watson explained: “There is no written rule.” He went on to further detail in his own words that the real question in those instances of a so-called checked swing (“Was it a strike?”)  is answered by how the umpire, and often only with the help of the umpires down the lines, responds to this more germane unwritten question: “Did the batter attempt to hit the baseball on that pitch or not?”

And here’s where viewing obstructions in real-time and the variability of human perception and interpretation inevitably lead us to divergent play calling, chaos, and conflict in these matters. One umpire sees a certain checking motion of the shoulders, arms, and bat as a so-called “checked swing” and rules a bad pitch a ball. A short time later, another umpire sees virtually the same kind of reaction to a similar pitch by another batter in another game and calls it a strike because the second umpire sees the behavior as an attempt to hit the ball.

Both game plays are captured as digital action records and feed the ongoing, never objectively answered, question: “Did the man swing at the ball or not?”

I could write for days on all the ground that Bob Watson covered last night, but will not try. It’s why you need to come to SABR in person. You will get something in person that no one can recapture for you in summary. The man was a most giving guest speaker. He put it all out there for anyone who really wanted to know what he thought – or wished to learn from his personal experience in baseball.

Like SABR’s October guest, Wally Moon, November’s Bob Watson also sharpened his eye-hand-wrist neuromuscular coordination for hitting as a kid In Los Angeles by the hours he and his buddies spent swinging at pitched bottle caps with broomstick-sized stick bats. “Those bottle caps had a lot of swerve to them,” said Watson. “I’m convinced that hitting at those bottle caps as a kid is what taught me how to hit curve balls as a man.”

I’m convinced too – just as I do believe a similar experience for Wally Moon with crushed Pet Milk cans taught him how to hit those “Moon Shots” at the Los Angeles Coliseum.

Bob Watson scored the one-millionth run in MLB history on May 4, 1975 at 12:32 PM in San Francisco, California. He scored from second base on a three-run homer by Milt May, but has to race home to reach the plate before Dave Concepcion got there for a homer in Cincinnati. MLB was watching the whole race like a hawk that day from every MLB game site in their attempt to get it right. Had Watson not hurried, he would have lost the honor to Concepcion, who had been racing around the paths as though the ball were still in play. As it worked out, Bob Watson only beat Dave Concepcion by about a second and a half.

Some Bob Watson Takes. Bob Watson used a heavy 42 ounce bat against some of baseball’s elite speedball pitchers like Sandy Koufax and a 35-37 ounce model against softer throwing guys like Phil Niekro. … BW hit for the cycle twice. … He liked working for John McMullen and thought he was very fair. … Under McMullen, the Astros were under orders not to sign or trade for any player who used Scott Boras as an agent. … BW remains in awe of the power once demonstrated by former Astros teammate Jimmy Wynn. He opined that the Jimmy Wynn of 1967 could have hit 75 home runs that season, had he been playing at Minute Maid Park. … BW feels that baseball is lucky to have survived the lost season and World Series of 1994. Had they played it out, BW feels the Astros would have taken it all. … Bob Watson is also a member of the Veteran’s Committee that soon will be considering several long-retired players for induction into the Baseball Hall of Fame. His integrity about his role in this task is also a matter he takes quite seriously. When Watson learned that we were about to take a straw vote last night on which players our chapter members thought were deserving, Bob asked to be excused.

“I don’t want to be influenced by anything I hear you say,” Bob Watson explained.

No further explanation was needed. The fairness of this man Bob Watson is simply another jewel in baseball’s crown.