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` THE MORAL AMBIGUITY OF THE MAKEUP CALL
Mark Hamilton
Ashland University
In a recent softball game between what will be called the purple team and the green team, one of
the green team’s batters squared to bunt but she clearly pulled her bat back before the ball
arrived. The umpire, however, called a strike saying she had offered at the pitch. Her green team
coach argued that she had not attempted to bunt the pitch and had gotten her bat back in time. (I
agreed with the coach). The umpire undoubtedly disagreed, called it a strike, and appropriately
did not ask for assistance from the base umpire. However, the next inning another green hitter, a
slapper, obviously punched at a pitch but the umpire called it a ball and surprisingly the purple
coach did not ask for the umpire to seek assistance from his partner. Without hesitation, I turned
to the purple team’s Director of Athletics who was seated next to me and spontaneously
remarked, “Makeup call; and the purple coaches are not arguing because they are accepting it as
such.”1
So accepted is the existence of makeup calls that Subway ran a national television
advertisement during the 2008 Super Bowl season in which an official in what appears to be a
real game turns to the crowd with fan noise reverberating, looks toward the audience as he
switches on the microphone and announces, “I totally blew the call. In fact, it wasn’t even close.
But don’t worry. I will penalize the other team. For no good reason. In the second half. To
even things up” (14: p.336-337). Every sports fan watching this commercial knew exactly what
the commercial was satirizing, the makeup call.
Innumerable times a close call goes against one team which upon reflection causes the
players and spectators to know this was clearly a wrong call or minimally could have been called
“either way”; this is followed shortly thereafter by a similar close call going the other way
benefitting the team that had been shortchanged or felt it had been “robbed” by the previous call.
Participants and sports fans nonchalantly think to themselves, “Well, that evens things up.”
Spectators see this type of action and reaction all the time taking them for granted and referring
to them as “makeup calls”. Let’s be honest – makeup calls happen! Anyone who has played in
or watched more than a few sporting events knows what phenomenon is being described by the
term—makeup call—and what is conspicuously being addressed by this concept. This article
describes two types of makeup calls, consciously intentional and subconsciously unintentional,
and addresses whether they are a legitimate option for officials and how they can fit into a
broader philosophy or morality of officiating. I will argue that there is something prima facia
abhorrent in a makeup call, yet in some sports as they define the nature of just competition
makeup calls seem to be a morally justifiable sport-specific option within clearly defined
parameters of application. However, they remain a perplexing moral problem in need of further
exploration.
Missed Calls As Motivators
“Lapses of attention, distractions, and being out of position are all inevitable” (17:
p.94) in sporting contests yet still officials must make instant calls since the only sin greater than
missing a call is for an official to hesitate prior to making a call thus giving the appearance of
incompetence. There is little place for deliberation in sports officiating.2 Because of this on the
spot pressure and due to the extreme closeness of many calls that can ostensibly be interpreted in
diverse ways by officials in many sporting venues, calls are sometimes missed.3 Replay systems
are making us more aware than ever about the reality of missed calls, some of which have been
widely publicized. Two highly exposed examples were first the world cup qualifying game in
November 2009 where France beat Ireland 2-1 on an uncalled handball captured by the cameras,
and second, during the summer of 2010 Detroit Tigers pitcher, Armando Galarraga, pitched a
“semi-perfect” baseball game where the only Cleveland Indians runner to reach base in the game
was on a play at first base with two out in the ninth inning where the runner was shown to
obviously be out by the replay system, but the play was missed by the umpire allowing the only
hit and runner in the game against Galarraga depriving him of a no-hitter and the first perfect
game in Tiger’s history.
Furthermore, a survey done by ESPN covering Major League Baseball during
the summer of 2010 showed that on very close plays, officials miss approximately
20% of calls. Researchers at ESPN used broadcast footage of all games from June
29 to July 11, a total of 184 games. They reviewed every non-ball or strike call.…
the ‘Outside the Lines’ analysis found that an average 1.3 calls per game were
close enough to require replay review to determine whether an umpire had made
the right call. Of the close plays 13.9 percent remained too close to call, with 65.7
percent confirmed as correct and 20.4 percent as incorrect”(15: p.1).
The examples in this survey not only demonstrate that many calls at the
highest level are missed by the most competent of officials, they show us how many close calls
actually can be called either way and that how the officials “see” the play and “interpret” the call
does matter. We know more clearly today than in previous generations that
refereeing mistakes happen. High definition slow motion video replay
technology allows viewers to see clearly that the referee got it wrong:
The runner’s hand did not beat the tag at second; the defender blocking the
shot got only the ball, not the shooter’s wrist; and the safety hit the receiver
before the ball arrived, not at the same time (14: p.333).
John Russell calls what umpires do “philosophically fascinating” and has argued
that calls are made by officials who are both witnesses and judges to the plays (l7: p.87). “A call
by an umpire is a verbal utterance that, given his role in the contest, brings it about that you are
out or safe, or behind in the count 0-and-2” (17: p.89). In one sense officials create the reality
because their judgments or calls are “performative utterances” but they are more because the
officials are also judges and when they miss a call can be false witnesses (17: p.91). Referees
constantly make judgments. Judgments are “whatever a judge or referee or umpire says…and
what they would say depends on their own judgment” (9:p.88). The closeness and immediacy of
many calls, along with the growing awareness of missed calls show us that calls really can
debatably be called either way; maybe officiating is not the exact science we would like it to be.4
Because of this, although the metaphysical and phenomenological approach to officiating is
captivating, more important to participants, fans and even officials is the skill needed in getting
the call right and the moral challenge presented by accurate officiating. Fans and players are
more interested in the integrity5 of the official than they are with “what he is doing”, more
interested in having the play called properly than the appealing nature of the umpire’s activity,
more interested in a “fair” contest than the metaphysical underpinnings of sports. Competency
in the methodology and technique of officiating and the veracity of the official are indispensable
matters. Therefore, though the phenomenology of this practice of officiating is rather intriguing,
more importantly to the game, the participants, and actually to the ones making the calls is the
honorable ethical effort involved in the officiating enterprise.
We need officials who are principled, honest, bound to a sense of justice and are
like judges who ought to govern by the virtues of integrity and impartiality. When used as a
virtue, integrity refers to the quality of a person’s character and embraces a moral point of view
(5: p.1). Inaccurate calls, officials who practice bias, who “read the rules” (9: p.90) and who are
devoid of an upright character really can distort and wrongly determine the outcome of a contest.
Whether the makeup call is consistent with getting the call right is a point of practical juncture
between sport philosophy and popular sports, between scholars and fans.
Referees make wrong judgments and must live with their mistaken calls. Furthermore,
they frequently become aware of an error immediately upon making the call. What can a good
(used in both senses of the word good, as one who makes accurate calls and one who is a morally
honest person) umpire do in one of these situations? What options of correction should be
extended to or permitted officials, if any, to compensate for a wrong call? Could we improve
this situation by creating a friendlier environment which allows more discretion for officials to
immediately overturn their own calls? Should they be granted more latitude i.e. can they make
corrections by making an second mistaken or false judgment (whether intentional or
unintentional, conscious or unconscious) to compensate for an original error? Should they
consciously “try” to divide indeterminate calls equally for each side? Finally, are there ways of
decreasing the need for makeup calls? These issues will be addressed as part of the discussion
about whether there is a moral justification for what is commonly referenced as “the makeup
call.”
Reversing the Call
The first option for the official who makes a wrong call is to immediately reverse
the call. “The Official Rules of Baseball…do say that an umpire should be prepared to change
‘a manifestly wrong decision when convinced that he has made an error’ ” (17: p.93), but this is
rare because the ethos of our games discourages such behavior. Many referees are too proud to
change a call, but more significantly they also understand the danger of doing so as it makes
officials appear to be inept thus causing the competitors to lose confidence in the officials’
ability to do their job efficiently. This inevitably leads to umpires losing control of the game
creating even more destructive consequences. It can be disastrous for an official to allow a game
to get out of control and the first step toward this is appearing ineffectual by reversing a call.
Occasionally a call is overturned but this is usually in multi-officiated contests when officials
join together and consult with one another or with the official who initially made the mistaken
call deferring to the partner, and thus getting the call correct and “saving face,” sometimes by
even saying the partner had a better angle to see the play in question. This is a common practice
in professional National Basketball Association (NBA) games where one official will make a
call, the disadvantaged team will spontaneously complain, the official now having second
thoughts will confer with a colleague with the call ending up authoritatively being reversed. The
official who defers in this situation may even know he “blew” the first call and by “acting” like
he is in need of help may actually reverse his own call by making it appear as if his partner has
overridden him. This can work successfully as long as it remains an occasional occurrence and
not a habitual practice where the official looks amateurish.
Makeup Calls More Succinctly Defined
A more realistic option open to the official is to attempt to rectify the
situation him or herself through what is designated “the makeup call.” Prior to investigating the
legitimacy of this beast, a more succinct understanding of what is meant by a makeup call should
be examined.
We call something a “makeup” when an unavoidable event occurs in our lives causing a
cancellation resulting in need of fair resolution through what are called makeup days, makeup
events or makeup tests. To make up a previous postponement, omission, or to make up a
deficiency is to get back to a proper balance where it was previously, where it should be, or dare
one even say returning to a restored harmony. It is a form of recovery. So in sports a makeup
call is an attempt to return stability to the sporting contest through a second call correcting an
error or deficiency in an earlier call. It may even mean making a second conscious intentional
errant call. But in most cases it is not so overt but is done subconsciously and unintentionally by
making a call that could arguably go either way in favor of the team that had thought itself
victimized by an earlier call.
Once an official becomes aware that an incorrect call has been made there is a
psychological impact on the arbiter. The awareness that she has missed a call presents the
official a dilemma about how to carry on. Rather than correcting it without delay herself by
reversing a call and consequently appearing clumsy or incompetent by publicly admitting this
error, the official sticks it in the back of her mind that a mistake has been made and then,
consciously or more likely subconsciously, reciprocates or gives back what was taken away
when she has an opportunity to make a call in favor of the team that had been short-changed by
the first call. This ideally restores balance and creates a type of reconciliation such as when one
person “makes up” with another. As children we often fought with each other on our way home
from school. It was a type of right-of-passage. These were never really violent fights and they
always ended with other friends saying, “now shake hands and makeup,” which of course, we
always did restoring balance and honor to the friendship and harmony to the neighborhood as
long as both of us saved face and believed that the result was beneficial to all. This is an
essential part of the argument in favor of a makeup call: it restores balance, harmony, and
fairness to the contest.
A type of self-talk may occur in the mind of the official, “I gave the other team the
‘benefit of the doubt’ in the last call so this time I will give the benefit of the doubt to the other
team.” 6 The reasoning that may go through the head of the official is that “Person or Team A”
should never have received this advantage, so it is an unfair advantage because of “my error”.
With this in mind the official assumes personal blame and responsibility though it may only
manifest itself as a quasi-ill feeling lasting only a moment. Based on this combination of a
twinge of guilt and need to right a perceived wrong the official then provides a call that creates
an advantage giving the “benefit of the doubt” to the second competitor “Person or Team B” in
an attempt to restore justice or fairness to the game. It is an easy rationale. The first call was
motivated by a desire to be just and to apply the rules fairly but did not successfully achieve this
aim, so the second is provoked by a desire to keep the game even and to not permit either team to
have the game tilted in their direction and thus it is motivated by a desire to maintain the game’s
equilibrium.
This longing for fairness moves contest participants and observers to work diligently at
making certain makeup calls occur. When an official misses an obvious call such as a foul or a
travel call in basketball often it is hotly protested by a coach or player or even by someone in the
crowd. Then when a similar play occurs the official feels the pressure to call it the other way in
order to “even up” the opportunities and make the game “fair.” Because of this participants use
intimidation to get calls to go their way. As William Pizzi asks, “What is the point of
vehemently protesting rulings that the protesters know cannot and will not be reversed?
Obviously, they plead their case in the hope that the referee will see the injustice of what he has
done and give the offended team the benefit of the doubt on the next close ruling” (14: p.335).
The hope is that the official will “atone” for their error through a makeup call.
When my wife, who is not very interested in sports, first became aware that I was
working on this paper she reminded me of the time she saw me arguing with umpires when I was
playing semi-pro baseball. She said that I excused my behavior by saying I was not arguing the
call but really arguing for the next call. Officials should not have to worry how their calls will
affect the players, benches or crowds. Second guessing themselves can cause too much to go on
in the minds of the officials weakening their concentration and the ability to do their job. It is
disconcerting to have an umpire begin to self-consciously ask, how did I make this call last time?
This is the very reason it has been argued that strong verbal dissent should not be permitted in
our contests. 7 Far too frequently it is used to intimidate the official into making a bad call.
Graham McFee argues further that, “The official should be free to make what he/she takes to be
the RIGHT calls in the context – and hence should be free from intimidation; and that EACH call
should be right”8
We cannot silence our crowds though; they will continue to intimidate officials
as they feed off of players and coaches. When fans become aware of a poor call they frequently
anticipate a subsequent make-up call coming and attempt to bully an official into making one.
This is closer to gaining an unfair advantage than it is to restoring equality. This problem has
intensified since the advent of instant replay on stadium scoreboards and on arena screens when
the error is confirmed to the crowd. Now the official has greater pressure both internally and
externally to “fix” it because the mistake is magnified to the audience. In these cases the honest
official knows he or she made a wrong call, may even see the error on the scoreboard or at least
hear the crowd’s reaction to the flashing replay thus intensifying the psychological pressure and
sentiment to rectify the situation. But does this morally justify making a marginal or wrong call
against the benefitting team as a form of compensation?
Once the nature and existence of makeup calls is acknowledged one must ask whether
they are just or do they only compound the error by adding error upon error? Do they adequately
and successfully accomplish the end of maintaining competitive balance? What moral
difficulties does a makeup call present and is it a moral option for a referee or umpire? If justice
is harmony as Plato argues in The Republic (13) then can a makeup call be the best way of
restoring harmony to a game that has become unbalanced by an errant call?
The Argument Against Makeup Calls
The title of this essay refers to makeup calls as an ambiguous moral
problem because arguments can be made both for and against them depending on one’s
philosophy of officiating, upon one’s presumed definition of justice and on the type of makeup
call. In looking for some resolution to the moral dilemma presented by makeup calls we need to
explore arguments against and for their practice.
Makeup calls may be intentional and conscious or
unintentional and subconscious; by intentional is meant that it is purposefully done and by
conscious is meant that the official making the call is aware of what she is doing. Intentional
conscious makeup calls are most troublesome. I will provide four reasons these should be
considered immoral and not permitted. First, it is dishonest. Officials are expected
to make calls within the constitutive and regulative rules of the game and an intentional makeup
call opposes this by breaking these rules. No one believes that umpires have the discretion to
make novel calls outside of the constitutive and regulative understandings of sports. To do so is
ignoring what one “sees” and subverts integrity. Second, it creates partiality. It is logically
contradictory to think that a referee should knowingly make a bad call Officials with a personal
itinerary can no longer call the game through unbiased lenses. “We need umpires or referees
with no agenda outside the sport” (9: p.90). Third, a Formalist would consider makeup calls to
be logically inconsistent and equivalent to not playing the game. 9
Finally, it is an act of injustice to perpetuate
injustice through further injustice. Philosophically one might phrase it this way: two wrongs do
not make a right. When Crito attempts to persuade Socrates to break out of jail and not suffer the
fate of death, he argues that it would be unjust for Socrates to die in this unjust manner. He tells
Socrates to “make up” for the court’s error and even things out by breaking out of jail. In
response, Socrates objects saying to Crito that it is not just to return one wrong with another
wrong. Socrates understands he must do justice regardless of what has befallen him. Though he
has been unjustly convicted he has no right to respond by unjustly breaking out of jail. He
rhetorically asks, Do we say that one must never in any way do
wrong willingly, or must one do wrong in one way and not another? Is to do
wrong never good or admirable, as we have agreed in the past or have all these former
agreements been washed out during the last few days?’…Above all, is the truth
such as we used to say it was…that nonetheless, wrongdoing or injustice is in
every way harmful and shameful to the wrongdoer? Do we say so or not?” Crito
agrees, “We do.” Socrates adds, “So one must never do wrong….Nor must
one, when wronged, inflict wrong in return,…since one must never do
wrong” (10: p.49).
A wrong cannot be justified as a response to an act of injustice or as a means of
revenge. Yet that is precisely what an intentional conscious makeup call does. It violates the
integrity and the impartiality of the official.
The Olympic Oath for judges (and for the Special Olympics) even
states, “In the name of the judges, I promise that we shall officiate in the Olympic Games with
complete impartiality respecting and abiding the rules which govern them, in the true spirit of
sportsmanship” (8: p.1). If the goal of the official is to use integrity and impartiality to get each
separate distinctive call right, then each call must be treated one at a time. There is a moral
difference between missing a call and intentionally making a wrong call. As stated above, two
wrongs do not make a right and intentionally making a wrong call is certainly wrong. Officials
who deliberately (meaning intentionally and consciously) do this should not be officiating.
Graham McFee asserts, “Any referee caught making a makeup call should be banned for life
from officiating - he has abandoned the duty to judge the event impartially.”10 These should be
eliminated from discussion as they are obviously illegal and immoral.
The more common type of makeup call is one where the official is
not aware she is doing so and lacks intent to miss a call but wants to remain objective and evenly
divide borderline calls; this is motivated by a desire for justice and impartiality. The official is
not cognizant of her action or subconscious motive for the call. This second type of makeup call
is deficient malicious intent and is more likely to occur in fast-paced sports such as basketball or
soccer or sports like baseball where decisions must be immediate without opportunity for
deliberation. But even this type of unintentional subconscious decision by an official to
perform a makeup call presents varied problems. One problem is proportionality, the assumption
that the makeup call is equivalent to the originally missed call. The initial justification for the
makeup call is that it is based on desert. It assumes that a ball called a strike can be compensated
for later by a strike called a ball, or that a charging call now and one called later in a game are
equivalent, but this is not so in sports. No two calls are likely equal in value. A foul called now
and one called soon after even if it is a similar type of play will more than likely not be identical
in value. Game contexts change, games progress and the consequences of one call may be
wholly different from the context of a previous call even when it is the same or similar call. It is
quite an assumption of an official to believe she can make the game “fair” by making bad calls.
The call’s impact on the game will depend upon the situation in the game
which is constantly in flux. There is disparity of effect between make up calls that are early in
the game which do not obviously have a major role in the outcome of the game compared to
those which occur at the climax of a contest.11 Many bad calls go unnoticed early in a game
because of their seemingly innocuous nature, but they can have far too much of an impact late in
the game on the outcome thus increasing the harms, including the harms created by a makeup
call late in a game when it is an attempt to reciprocate for a missed call early in a game. The
impact of late game calls has led to some leagues to authorize instant replay more frequently in
certain parts of a game.12
Officials who make themselves more important than the rules of
the game create suspicion. It could be argued that an official who initiates a makeup call even
subconsciously is no longer calling the game since he is bypassing the rules. By declaring a
makeup penalty or foul the official is purposely rejecting the game and its foundations. It has
been well argued in the philosophy of sport that cheaters are no longer playing the game.13
Analogous to this cheating athlete who is no longer playing the game, the biased official who
formulates a makeup call is no longer “calling” the game but creating some new game according
to his own rules. Even if one argues he is still playing the game, he is certainly not calling what
is being played. He is no longer committed to the game and its rules (constitutive and regulative).
He is taking justice into his own hands and practicing vigilante justice.
I’ve actually spoken to officials who will not admit that such a thing as a
makeup call exists. They sense that acknowledging a makeup call is a threat to the integrity of
all officials. Admitting a wrong and compensating for it with another wrong is a violation of
neutrality. Thus makeup calls frequently remain an unacknowledged and unspoken reality
among officials. When confronted with the charge of making a makeup call, referees deny they
are trying to even out the calls due to a previous error made either by oneself or by one of her
officiating companions because admitting to them would take a high degree of self-
consciousness, something in rare commodity. It is more likely an official remains self-deceived
and minimally conscious that she is officiating this way and unwilling to admit the reality of
making a makeup call. It is because they comprehend how seriously makeup calls threaten the
trustworthiness of officiating and the destructive prima facie implications they have for our
games. One of the complications is that many calls are not as clear
as we would like them to be. The ESPN survey cited at the beginning of this paper affirmed that
nearly 14% of all close calls examined during this timeframe in Major League Baseball in 2010
were impossible to determine (15: p.1). What if call “a” is not obvious but the coach, players,
and fans convince the official he has missed it so he then responds with a makeup call “b” but
later discovers by looking at a replay that call “a” was correct originally or could have gone
either way? Then call “b” is not really a makeup call and it has not succeeded in bringing justice
but has actually compounded the error.
Finally an argument can be made that makeup calls
violate Kant’s second formulation of the Categorical Imperative.14 Kant states, “Act in such a
way that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of another, always at
the same time as an end and never simply as a means” (6: p.36). Everyone, insofar as he or she is
a rational being, has intrinsic significance and worth. This has consequences on how we treat
other humans. Rational beings are not to be treated as mere things because they possess inherent
value and dignity. People should not be used only as tools by which we can satisfy our own
purposes. Yet the makeup call does just that; it uses another rational person or team of persons
as a means to an end to correct the official’s error. If a batter “X” has a full count and is thrown a
pitch on the outside corner that should be called a strike, but instead the umpire misses the call
and the batter receives ball four and walks, but then the next batter “Y” situation has a full count
pitch miss the outside corner, but the umpire who has become cognizant of his missed call on the
previous batter now calls “strike three” on batter “Y” to make reparations (even if the motivation
is subconscious) for his error on the previous batter, then this umpire is using batter “Y”, who is
victimized by this makeup call, as a means to an end to accomplish the official’s flawed sense of
personal justice.15 Batter “Y” is not being respected for his own individual humanity but has
become a pawn for the umpire to use to ease his own conscience. These criticisms place the
burden of proof upon those who would support the moral justification of makeup calls.
Seeking Moral Justification for Makeup
Calls No idea in Western civilization has been more consistently
linked to ethics and morality than justice. To rationally establish a moral basis for makeup calls
it must be by the use of justice and the application of a theory of justice. Justice means giving
each person what he or she deserves or, in more traditional terms, giving each person his or her
due.16 Justice should govern all our relations with our fellow humans since justice “is in relation
to another” (16: p.1). Justice is a virtue that is broad enough to govern social human
relationships and since sport is contingent upon social interaction justice is the social virtue
which must govern our interactive human sports. This seems a simple approach and it is until
one begins the attempt at defining justice.
There are many theories of justice. Common
categories of justice are: distributive, retributive, restorative, and corrective. These theories
overlap and are often hard to distinguish from each other. Breaking them into two distinctive
categories, Aristotle writes, “Of particular justice and that which is just in the corresponding
sense, (A) one kind is that which is manifested in distributions of honour or money or the other
things that fail to be divided among those who have a share in the constitution…, and (B) one
that plays a rectifying part in transactions between man and man” (2: p.4).
Distributive Justice
The first of Aristotle’s two forms of
justice is distributive justice and concerns the fair allocation of benefits in society regardless of
one’s status or what one has earned. Distributive justice is based on equality “that everyone
should get or have the same amount, regardless of their input” (8: p.1). Principles of distributive
justice are normative principles designed to guide the allocation of the benefits and burdens of
economic activity (7: p.1). This form of justice appeals to the notion of fairness, that a person
should receive a fair share in comparison to others. Distributive justice refers to the extent to
which society’s institutions ensure that benefits (money, honors, and resources) and burdens are
distributed among society’s members in ways that are fair and just. It is concerned with goods
and services in ways that sports is not. Total fairness removes all advantages to anyone creating
an egalitarian system; it fails to take into account differences in ability and in earned distinctions
which are naturally found in sports. This should eliminate the consideration of distributive
justice to competitive sports. Furthermore, since officiating calls are responsive to conduct--
conduct that violates a regulative rule or that complies or fails to comply with a constitutive rule
there is added reason to dismiss distributive justice from being relevant to commonplace calls,
including makeup calls.17 Retributive, Restorative, and
Corrective Justice The second of Aristotle’s two types
of justice says justice “plays a rectifying part in transactions between man and man” (2: p.1).
This definition connects retributive, restorative and corrective justice. Retributive justice is
traditionally founded on the concept of “just desert,” that a person should receive the deserved
punishment. It is retrospective and poses a sanction that corresponds to individual moral desert.
If one treats others unjustly and denies them their rights then the deserved punishment ensues.
This philosophy of justice says “people should receive benefits in proportion to what they
contributed to producing those benefits” (8: p.1-2). Retributive justice is a difficult theory to use
though because its precise meaning is highly controversial. Many contemporary theorists do not
agree on its meaning or about the relationship between justice and desert. Some seem willing to
accept that justice is entirely a matter of getting what is deserved while others hold that factors
like fairness may need to be considered. Some even consider retribution to be irrelevant to
justice.18 Getting what one deserves is a part of justice but probably not all of it.
The dominant retributivist view is that it only applies to
punishments and not rewards. Applied to sports this would mean that prices, penalties and
sanctions in sport should be viewed only as punishments and this is incomplete.19 Sports also
offer rewards for performance and behavior. In applying this concept of justice to officiating
sport a foul should be called because it is deserved with penalties assessed as a consequence of
broken rules. But the problem in applying this to makeup calls is that the first call made is
mistaken and undeserved and the reciprocal one or makeup call is made in response and is likely
undeserved as well. The one who is in error and who should be punished is not the player, but
the official who makes the mistaken call in the first place yet there is no opportunity to punish an
official during a game. However, in systems where officials are licensed and evaluated there is
the possibility for consequences to be taken afterwards by governing authorities. In this situation
retributive justice can apply but this theory of justice has little or no overarching application to
sports and to the evaluation of makeup calls.
In recent times a move toward restorative justice
has become prominent. Restorative justice looks at the individual victim and how a person can
receive healing subsequent to an injustice done. It is an attempt to get the victim reinstated to the
place where he was before the first delinquent call was made. However, in the case of the
makeup call the first victim is the one who has had the errant call made against him and in the
case of a team sport the whole team is thereby victimized. The extraordinary problem with
makeup calls is that the opponent is not the perpetrator of the injustice but rather it is the judge,
the supposed unbiased arbiter making the call. Restorative justice endeavors to bring together the
victim and the victimizer but the problem is that in regards to makeup calls the judge who has
made the ruling is himself ironically the cause of the estrangement. Though there is a true sense
in which a makeup call is an attempt to restore the game to its previous balance, generally in this
model there is a relational appeal where the impact of the error is assessed and appropriate
measured actions are performed to restore the relationship between offended parties. This seems
impossible when the judge is the offender. Moreover the one being punished by the
makeup call is not the guilty one or the perpetrator of error, but the undeserved beneficiary of a
bad call who now is himself victimized by the second ruling. This curative idea of restoring
justice by creating a new victim is troublesome for advocates of restorative justice. For these two
reasons restorative justice by itself has great difficulty being applicable to makeup calls. It
would be absurd and logistically impossible to stop a game in the middle of its action and see an
act of restoration occur between an umpire and a player every time a mistaken call is made
though there are occasions where officials have apologized for errors of judgment. In the
Galarraga situation umpire Jim Joyce privately apologized to Galarraga and the next day publicly
apologized for his missed call. This was a bold act of restorative justice but could have never
occurred in the middle of a game. Punishment is sometimes warranted as a response to
an act of wrongdoing and can have a restorative effect as well when it works to return things to
the way they were previously. In fact, “Augustine makes it clear that the goal of retributive
justice is restoration to something like primary justice” (4: p.1). Therefore retributive and
restorative practices of justice cannot be completely dismissed from one another. Neither can
they be comfortably separated from corrective justice.
Corrective Justice as the Best Basis for Makeup Calls
There are differing views of both retributive and
corrective justice. On some views, these two types of justice appear to
overlap, even to be identical. Some views of retributive justice talk
of annulling and rectifying wrongs as do some views of corrective
justice. Both are concerned to ‘annul” or “rectify’ wrongs (22: p.542)
. . Corrective justice is grounded in the second
Aristotelian theory of justice and encompasses aspects of retributive and restorative justice. It
offers the best hope at finding a useable theory to justify makeup calls.20 Like retributive justice
it tries to provide a remedy for a wrong that has occurred. And though two wrongs do not make
a right, there is a responsibility to correct a wrong and this theory takes this responsibility
seriously. It can also be referred to as reparatory or remedial justice because its purpose is to
repair an injustice between persons where one has gained unfairly, or caused harm or loss at the
expense of another. It does not necessarily offer traditional retribution or deserved punishment
(as found in retributive justice) but “provides compensation for what we would call violations of
contract (3: p.1) and attempts to restore a balance or harmony (2: p. 5)
Therefore, this kind of injustice being an inequality,
the judge tries to equalize it; for in the case also in which one has received and the
other has inflicted a wound, or one has slain and the other been slain, the
suffering and the action have been unequally distributed; but the judge tries to
equalize by means of the penalty, taking away from the gain of the assailant…
corrective justice will be the intermediate between loss and gain (2: p. 5).
Corrective justice is restorative in its ambition. When a social balance is undermined, one is
obliged to rectify the situation and this pressure is felt by officials. “Corrective justice is a form
of justice and not a substantive moral standard. It determines how justice is done, but not when
it should be done. Corrective justice has been defined as an arithmetical rectification of a wrong
committed through a bilateral interaction” (11: p. 178). While Aristotle calls it corrective justice,
Catholic divines call it commutative justice referring to the regulation and rectification of our
dealing with fellow men so everyone will have what is properly his own whether by legality or
right while acting out of true and consistent convictions. Corrective justice requires that just
compensation be based solely on the harm done. Aquinas calls it a commutation which is an
exchange or substitution, interchange. He says, “…in commutations something is paid to an
individual on account of something of his that has been received, as may be seen chiefly in
selling and buying” (1: p. 3). Victims must be made whole (compensated) (18: p.144).
Two of the most important corrective justice theorists are Ernest J. Weinrib and
Jules Coleman and though they have their own distinct theories of corrective justice they both
agree that it must be non-instrumental (18: p.147), not be for external purposes or ends and, that
it plays a role in moral relationships (18: p.148). They also believe that it teaches a principled
understanding of personal responsibility and that it involves annulling wrongful gains and
wrongful losses. Christopher Schroeder says of Coleman, “Wrongful gain consists of whatever
advantage the defendant personally acquires by violating the relevant norm of individual
behavior” (18: p.148). It provides actual compensation to an unfairly injured party removing the
gained advantage. Corrective justice governs the obligations people have to repair harms they
have caused; it is to cancel the wrong committed and to compensate for it in order to restore the
damage done. It is concerned with healing fissures in social order and interpersonal relations.
How can a sports official offset a wrong call committed in a sporting contest? A
makeup call is a plausible attempt to annul a wrongful gain. Corrective justice takes from the
former in order to give to the latter recompense for an injustice suffered. Rectification is a
remedy reflecting what ought to have happened in the first place so the remedy must mirror the
injustice. Corrective justice is not punitive, a deterrent or done for a social reason. It is a type of
apology by the official and a repudiation of an earlier act. Compensation for the harm suffered is
appropriate to the harm done and is for the common good of the many..
The makeup call attempts to make the game as fair as possible and to remove the
official from being a determining factor in the outcome of the game. The official who
subconsciously makes a makeup call is not motivated by a desire to change the course of a game.
She simply wants to keep the game in harmony and to not personally be a causal determining
factor to the outcome of the game. This is a good motive and is the only real compensation
available to the official. A bad call is unfair and one side will suffer. The makeup call attempts
to restore rightly to a team or player as much as possible what has been unfairly taken from them
even at the unfortunate expense of another. All forms of corrective justice limit restitutionary
damages insofar as they correspond to the injustice that the accused party has done to the injured
party. The good official understands this and is restricted by a fair sense of proportionality
knowing that no call is precisely equivalent in value to a previous call but it could be relatively
of the same value. The position arguing for corrective justice, says sporting games are not a
series of consecutive unrelated plays but are part of a whole contest of interconnected and
interdependent plays and actions. Games have an obvious gestalt21 to them and calls are
interconnected affecting how a game should be officiated. This holistic approach to contests
could allow discretionary use of makeup calls by officials, but not every type of makeup call in
every sport. Each sport develops its own higher sense of internal justice as part of its
evolving ethos and this sense of corrective justice is found in regulative rules and may be more
authoritative than the constitutive rules of the game. Just as sports create their own rules and
guidelines, they also create their own sense of justice. One sport may believe makeup calls are
quite immoral and should not be an accepted part of its competition; it is outside the justice
system of that sport. Other sports may find them quite acceptable. Officials and participants
must be cognizant of the way their sport is to be played (regulative rules) and officiated and what
the acceptable parameters of the ethos of the sport are. It can be argued that in some sports the
unstated contract of play assumes the makeup call as part of the unspoken regulative rules of the
game. This is justified by arguing that makeup calls can be a lawful way of restoring harmony to
the competitive contest as most basketball, baseball, and soccer enthusiasts know.
It does not mean that one can make up the rules as one goes along or make
outrageous calls that distort and disrupt the nature or flow of the game. Officials, contestants, and
even observers know these higher rules, the sense of the justice of the game and as this
perspective argues as long as a makeup call is part of the consistent “understood” rules of the
game and that it does not violate the other concerns described in this section of this article, then
they are a legitimate means of keeping the corrective justice of the sport and maintaining the
morality of the official. Of course there could be an immoral ethos. For example, if the game
permits too much violence or discrimination; the question presented here is whether makeup
calls could be morally justified as part of the ethos of a sport. On the other hand, maybe the
makeup call is part of an immoral ethos and should be readily removed as we have done with
discrimination in sports.
If one wants to morally justify makeup calls, the only real possibility to do
so is by the standards of corrective justice. Makeup calls seem to be an almost necessary part of
the basketball or baseball ethos possibly to the degree that not making a make-up call violates the
spirit of the game. Thus a game may build within it a form of corrective justice which permits
officials to keep a game “fair” and in harmony with opportunities for each team or competitor
having equal or relatively equal opportunity for success by having discretion to make makeup
calls. But this should be limited to not distorting the nature of the game, not merely using
another team or player as a means to an end to satisfy or sooth the official’s conscience due to an
errant or inept call, and it should be limited to calls which really are close enough to have been
debatably called either way. .
Conclusion
The latter part of this paper has constructed an argument supporting
makeup calls as moral and part of the accepted ethos of some sports. If one wants to support the
morality of makeup calls it seems that it must be by the use of corrective justice as justification.
Nevertheless that is not the position I hold. There still seems something offensive about makeup
calls. I believe they are self-evidently immoral and compromise the integrity and impartiality of
officials. The imperative of our officials remains to get each call correct. Because of this the
burden of proof continues to rest upon those who would morally justify makeup calls.
Games are not perfect and neither are our officials though we expect them to be.
We can improve our games, however, and one way to do so is to reduce or even eliminate the
need and desire for makeup calls. There are several specific ways I would suggest. First, our
mindset toward officials should be reconditioned to accept their imperfections as part of the
game similar to accepting an unfortunate collision or a bad bounce. Mistaken and inadvertent
calls happen and we must accept their existence as part of the game. This can be done by
changing the culture of sport through limiting or reducing dissent and thus reducing the pressure
on officials to perform makeup calls. This returns us to the immorality of our ethos. The ethos
which developed that treats officials as antagonists must be changed. This can be done gradually
through education. When an official makes a wayward call it is seldom done in a premeditated
malicious manner. It is generally unintentional. There should be no moral demand for an
official to make compensation for an unintended error; however, we could probably improve our
ethos by becoming more accepting of immediately reversed calls.
A second way to reduce makeup calls is to improve the accuracy of the “first
call”; this would lessen the need for a makeup call. This could be through better training of
officials, but could also be justification for using immediate replay systems in our highest levels
of competitive games which would assure greater accuracy of the first call. This is reasonable as
long as the rhythm of the game is not removed or the ambiance of the contest which would do
more harm than good.
We should fine-tune our discussions about what the primary duties and
responsibilities of an official really are. Why should character matter in our officials? Which
should be the higher priority: to get each individual particular call independently correct or see
the contest as a whole and calls as interrelated? This last philosophical underpinning seems to be
foundational to this whole discussion on makeup calls and directly relates to justice in sports. A
clearly articulated philosophy of officiating needs to be understood by participants, audiences,
and officials and whether this or that action is worthy of being a penalty, about the role of
dissent, and acceptance or rejection of the regulative and constitutive rules of the game and
officiating within them. In conclusion the makeup call presents an absorbing moral
enigma with good reasons supporting each side of the argument creating a very ambiguous issue.
When Plato asked in The Republic what justice is, he never imagined that his question would
have relevance to the twenty-first century sporting genre, but in reality the old questions never
really change they only change context. This paper has begun the investigation of what should be
an ongoing discussion about makeup calls, justice and the moral enterprise of officiating.
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Endnotes
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