William D. Blake

Umpires as Legal Realists

Journal article

William Blake
PS: Political Science & Politics, vol. 45(2), 2012 Apr, pp. 271-76
DOI: 10.1017/S1049096511002101
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Cite

APA   Click to copy
Blake, W. (2012). Umpires as Legal Realists. PS: Political Science &Amp; Politics, 45(2), 271–276. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1049096511002101

Chicago/Turabian   Click to copy
Blake, William. “Umpires as Legal Realists.” PS: Political Science & Politics 45, no. 2 (April 2012): 271–76.

MLA   Click to copy
Blake, William. “Umpires as Legal Realists.” PS: Political Science &Amp; Politics, vol. 45, no. 2, Apr. 2012, pp. 271–76, doi:10.1017/S1049096511002101.

BibTeX   Click to copy 

@article{blake2012a,
  title = {Umpires as Legal Realists},
  year = {2012},
  month = apr,
  issue = {2},
  journal = {PS: Political Science & Politics},
  pages = {271-76},
  volume = {45},
  doi = {10.1017/S1049096511002101},
  author = {Blake, William},
  month_numeric = {4}
}
During his confirmation hearings, then-judge John Roberts analogized the role of a judge to the role of a baseball umpire. Roberts argued that umpires do not make the rules; they simply apply them. Legal scholars have criticized Roberts from a legal realist perspective because the analogy misconstrues the nature of judging as formalistic. I believe Roberts also misconstrued the nature of umpiring as formalistic. Like judges, umpires must rely on their experience, rather than logic, because the rules of baseball are sometimes incomplete, indeterminate, and contradictory. On occasion, umpires even ignore the rulebook (justifiably). The judges-as-umpires analogy thus illustrates the differences between legal formalism and legal realism in a way that students can more easily understand.
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