Are the umpires wired?

A comment from an Alert Reader deserves a public reply. She finds the ability of the umpires to get together, discuss a wrong call, then make the right call without benefit of instant replay pretty remarkable, especially after seeing them do that TWICE in the same game. She wonders, do they have a radio so they can hear the announcers say "they messed that call up?"

Here is my authoritative answer: I don't know, but I will never make jokes about baseball umpires again.

These guys are famous for "calling it like they see it." Legions of managers have been ejected from the game trying to change an umpire's mind. I grew up believing their calls were final. . .and they almost always were before television. (There was baseball before television. There was baseball before radio.) On the other hand, even though the official rules don't actually require more than one umpire, the league championship games have six umpires on the field every night. You've gotta figure two or three are in position to see every play from a good angle. So, if one of them blows a call in a high-stakes game, I'm proud to see that they collectively want to get it right. If they are listening to the announcers by hidden radios implanted in their thick eyeglasses or their red and white canes, that would be OK with me. Uh oh, I did it again.