A guy at a Denver ballgame told me umpires only get 2 seconds to call a pitch, and I can't stop thinking about it

Max Miller · 2026-09-30T17:55:03.663675+00:00

I was sitting behind home plate at a Rockies game a couple weeks ago and the guy next to me claimed the plate umpire has about two seconds from the ball hitting the catcher's mitt to make the call. I looked it up later and found a study that tracked umpires at something like 300 milliseconds of actual decision time on close pitches. That seems insane for a job where one wrong call can swing a whole game. My hot take is that we should stop screaming at umps for missing a pitch that crossed the plate faster than a blink. Has anyone else seen that study, or is the two second thing just something old-timers repeat?

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A guy at a Denver ballgame told me umpires only get 2 seconds to call a pitch, and I can't stop thinking about it | Blunt Takes Only - Talk Freely