metirish wrote: I remember one game where Valentine got the umpire to change a call.....IIRC he knew the rule and they didn't. I believe that was this game. --- I am strongly in favor of arguing with the umpires. It is my perception that mistakes by umpires largely go unchecked and while they do make the vast majority of calls correctly, there are plenty of missed calls and little or no accountability for umpires who perform poorly. Accordingly, arguing with umpires is -- in my opinion -- essential. They absolutely should be challenged when they make mistakes and it drives me crazy when Jerry (or Willie, or whomever) doesn't get their ass out of the dugout quickly to argue calls. There's obvious drawbacks to having a player argue (ejection, suspension, etc.) but essentially none to having your manager argue, unless you think Chip Hale can't be trusted to run the team for the last 4 innings of a game. I remember flipping through John Feinstein's book about Tom Glavine and Mike Mussina's 2007 season, and there was a revealing passage about what transpired in this game (IGT) (Retrosheet). Tony Randazzo had made several bad calls against the Mets in the series, and after a close play at first, Willie went out to argue. In the book, Feinstein reveals that what Willie said to the umpire was "tell me you missed the call, and I'll just go back to the dugout." Randazzo refused, claimed he got the call right (when of course he totally blew it) and that's what set Willie off and caused him to use the magic word. I thought that was a really good way of handling things by Willie (in that particular instance) and I'd sure like to see some similar fire out of Jerry. A slot trot out of the dugout and a friendly chat with the umpire isn't cutting it.