George Will's annual baseball column

George F. Will, the Pulitzer Prize-winning political commentator, devotes at least one column every year to his real passion -- baseball.

This week, Will focuses on the much-despised baseball umpire, reviewing a new book, "As They See 'Em: A Fan's Travels in the Land of Umpires" by Bruce Weber.

From Will's column:

Baseball is, Weber notes, the only sport that asks an on-field official to demarcate the most important aspect of the field of play -- the strike zone. Although defined in the rule book, its precise dimensions are determined daily by the home plate umpire.

Umpires are used to having their eyesight questioned -- when someone criticized Bruce Froemming's, he said, "The sun is 93 million miles away, and I can see that" -- but their integrity is unquestioned. As Weber notes, players, not umpires, conspired to fix the 1919 World Series; a manager (Pete Rose), not an umpire, was banned from baseball for betting on games.

Read the full column here.