A Close Shave

When I worked with Softball Canada, I remember an occasion where I heard that an umpire attending a national championship tried to sue the association. We had a strict policy that umpires could not have beards and this gentleman sported one. He was claiming that he was being discriminated against.

The case was thrown out of court. Here’s why.

The umpire-in-chief at the time was a man by the name of Ed Bitz. He told the judge that the umpire was aware of the rule before he arrived at the national championship.

As umpire-in-chief, his job was to judge the umpires. It is important that they are neat in appearance. Shoes had to be shined. No jewellery could be worn, mainly for safety reasons. Pants, shirts, shoes and socks had to be a certain colour.

At least a couple of reasons were behind these rules. First, there were usually at least two umpires on the field. It gave them more authority if they looked the same. Second, on a close call, like a policeman, a neat umpire would be able to “sell” the call better.

The beard is considered part of this philosophy. Bitz’s reasoning was that he had to make the judgement of when a beard was considered too scruffy or not. He found that the simplest way was to determine this was to draw the line at the skin – in other words, no beard. Otherwise, when would a beard be deemed to be unacceptable?

With many of today’s issues, we face the same problem. Where do we draw the line in the sand or when does a beard become too scruffy? It doesn’t matter what the discussion is, your level of tolerance to any issue will be different than mine. Then what do we do? How do we agree to disagree?

In my blog, I have given my opinion on a number of topics. I don’t expect everyone to have exactly the same view as I do.

Like television in the 1950s, years ago things tended to be more black and white. Today, there are so many colours. Perhaps this is good, but the result can be that there are so many variables that society doesn’t have any values at all. Anything goes. Where does that leave us? I wonder. I long for the simple solution that Ed Bitz had on beards. The easiest place to draw the line was at the face.