Perspective Experimental

Perspective in Sports   

In any sport, there are multiple perspectives to consider.  Some in general are the players' perspectives, the audience's perspective, referees' perspectives, and etc.  Each perspective should be respected and considered when evaluating a sport.  Perspective is able to open up arguments within a team or change a ruling on the field.  Although some athletes don't know it, their perspective and the perspective other players around them affect the outcome of the sport they are playing. 

Baseball

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In baseball, there are usually four umpires to view the game from multiple perspectives.  This allows the game to go on, limiting the chance of a false ruling or accusation.  Each umpire is responsible to view various actions or events that may occur during the baseball game.  The umpire behind home base has the best sense or point of view required to call a pitch a strike or ball.  The first and third base umpires decide whether a batter checked his swing in time to consider the pitch a ball.  The two umpires also decide whether a player is safe or out on the base they are assigned to.  During certain situations, the umpire and player at bat will have a disagreement.  The player will experience one thing forming his own perception of the event while the umpire will form another perception that contradicts the player's.  This happens quite often in baseball.  In the video below you can see Jose Reyes called out due to a false perception.  The umpire thought he saw Reyes's hand slip off of third base, when in reality it stayed directly connected to the base.  From Reyes's perspective, he just hit a triple.  After the game the umpire apologized to Reyes for making a bad call.  He didn't realize that Reyes's hand never left third base.  When the perspectives of the referee and player in any sport contradict one another, there is bound to be a fight or argument. 

Basketball

Like baseball, basketball has multiple referees in order to make the game as fair as possible.  Even with the various referees positioned in multiple spots around the court, there are still some bad calls being made in professional basketball.  In some cases, it only takes one bad call to change the winner of the game.  In the clip below, the Celtics and Lakers are going all out in the second game of the NBA finals.  Down to the last two minutes of the game, after a missed shot Kevin Garnett and Pau Gasol try to catch the rebound.  Both their attempts to catch the ball result in a failure and the ball goes out of bounds.  The referees rules that the ball was out on Pau Gasol.  From the referee's point of view he saw Pau Gasol hit the ball last.   His brain interprets the last hand to touch the ball before it went out as Gasol's, allowing the Celtics to regain possession and keep one of their players in the game.  Had the blame been put on Kevin Garnett, it would have been ruled a foul for reaching over the back of a player on the the other team.  This would've been Garnett's sixth foul putting him out of the game.  With Garnett out of the game and Laker's possession, the game might have ended differently then it did.  Our perspectives in sports affects the outcome of the game.  That cliche I have to see it to believe it really comes into play here.  Referees make their decisions based on what they see or perceive.  Whether the image they thought to have seen was only a mere illusion, their decisions and rulings have a heavy impact on the game. 
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Sources:
http://media.mlive.com/cutoffman/photo/061410-jim-joyce-umpirejpg-aa2bd48ae36555f3_large.jpg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTBZ2KR0xEw
See all sources on our bibliography.