My youngest grandson turned 3 years old last Saturday. Noah can count to 4. Actually, he has been able to count to more than 4 for many months.

I mention this because in the past week or so men much older and more educated than Noah have demonstrated that they are incapable of counting to 4. I am talking about major league umpires, eight of whom lost track of the count on the batter twice.

Of course, so did everyone else – players, coaches, managers – because no one questioned the count. But the umpires, starting with the home plate umpire, have the first responsibility of knowing how many balls and strikes the pitcher has thrown.

They even have help to keep the count straight. They have clickers, one dial for a ball, one for a strike. It’s a simple process that umpires perform thousands of times a season.

On June 25, however, Mike Dimuro, the home plate umpire in the game between the New York Mets and the Texas Rangers, fouled up the count on Nelson Cruz, and none of the rest of the umpiring crew – Andy Fletcher, Tim Welke and Jim Reynolds – came to his rescue. They obviously didn’t know the count either.

Jonathon Niese, the Mets’ pitcher, had already thrown four balls to Cruz, but the batter didn’t question the count, and neither did anyone else in Texas uniforms. If Niese or any other members of the Mets knew the last pitch was ball four, they weren’t telling.

Instead of getting a walk, Cruz proceeded to strike out. In the over-all scheme of things, that incident might have been irrelevant because the Mets won the game, 14-5. At the time, though, the Mets led by only 3-0, and the Rangers had a runner at first with no one out.

Two runners on with no one out might have led to something significant.

The second incident, which occurred a week later, July 2, was unquestionably significant. It led to the only run of the game between the San Diego Padres and the Seattle Mariners.

With one out in the fifth inning, the Padres’ Cameron Maybin walked on what he thought was a 3-2 pitch from Doug Fister.

“I thought it was a full count, like everybody else in the park,” said Maybin, who saw 3-2 on the scoreboard. “Turned out to be a big play. It was a crazy play. I’ve never been a part of something like that. It worked out in our advantage, so we’ll take it.”

When Maybin headed for first, Phil Cuzzi, the plate umpire, did not say ‘whoa. That’s only ball three.’” Bill Miller, Chris Conroy and Tom Hallion, the other umpires, didn’t put up their hands to stop Maybin either.

He went to first, moved to second on a ground out and scored as Alberto Gonzalez singled to left field.

One-two-three-four: It really isn’t difficult. Dimuro and Cuzzi should try it.

“Obviously that’s a mistake we’re not proud of and shouldn’t happen,” said Peter Woodfork, who as senior vice president for baseball operations is in charge of umpires. “It’s not acceptable, but it happens.”

It happened in these two instances, Woodfork noted, even though many other participants could have called the umpires on their counts.

“We have not only four umpires but two clubs in each situation that didn’t complain about it,” Woodfork said in a telephone interview. Perhaps the most unfortunate aspect, he lamented, was that no one thought of using the readily available solution to a count question.

“It’s one of those things that is more controllable,” Woodfork said. “You can actually go to the official scorer at any time and make sure the count is correct. We’ve talked to the umpires about this. If a team complains, you can go to the official scorer.”

Ay, but there’s the rub. Someone has to suspect something is wrong to ask the umpires to go to the official scorer. In these two instances, no one suspected a thing.

“You’d like to think someone would pick up on it,” Woodfork said, “but first and foremost it’s the umpires’ responsibility. That’s not acceptable.”

Baseball officials don’t talk about disciplinary action taken against umpires, and Woodfork followed that practice when I asked him if Dimuro and Cuzzi or any of the other umpires had been disciplined.

“I’m not going to speak on particular umpires and discipline,” Woodfork said. “Over-all,” he added, “instances where there’s a controllable mistake, obviously discipline can be applied.”

Umpiring mistakes have created problems in recent years. Most notable probably has been the Jim Joyce call on the last play of the game that cost Armando Galarraga a perfect game.

That call seemed to set off a series of startlingly bad calls that subsequently led to a shakeup in the commissioner’s office. Woodfork joined the commissioner’s office in March as part of the shakeup.

But how to account for an umpire not knowing the count? There’s just no excuse or explanation for such an oversight. It’s most likely that Dimuro and Cuzzi have paid for their mistakes and won’t make them again.

Those incidents will have a beneficial effect, alerting other umpires to make sure they keep track of the count. And if they don’t heed their colleagues’ mistakes, Woodfork can introduce practice sessions where Noah could lead them in repeating 100 times “1-2-3-4.”