EDITORIAL : TO UMP IS HUMAN.

HERE'S our advice for the umpires who work Major League Baseball games: Get some help

It must be tiring for umpires to go back to their quarters after games, watch their blown calls repeated over and over on TV and then issue mea culpas.

Wouldn't it be easier to acknowledge they may have made a mistake because they were out of position or had their view obstructed by a player and ask for assistance?

Commissioner Bud Selig, the league president, and the head of the umpires should get together this winter and work out a protocol on what umpires can do to get the calls correct on the field.

Forget TV replays. We don't think umpires should ask for help on bang-bang calls at bases, whether batted balls were caught or trapped, or even on balls and called strikes.

Baseball's history is colored by bad calls, but few have been as deplorable (and maybe as costly) as umpire Tim Tschida's blown call - ruling Red Sox runner Jose Offerman was out on a tag play when clearly he avoided it - in Sunday's Game 4 of the American League Championship Series.

When the call was contested so vehemently, Tschida should have asked for help from a fellow ump. Or another umpire should have been able to intervene, without offending Tschida or negatively affecting the umpiring crew's integrity, and asked for a conference.

Everyone says that baseball is best played when no one realizes the umpires are there. All too often lately they have been the focal point of games. And it's too bad when we see them more often in the post-season.

It's time for a change - for the good of the game.