Letters to the Editor
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Column masturbation
King - Love the column today and it was cool to hear about the ump asking the payer if he tagged him. I missed that watching the game.
It is not cool however to provide a link earlier in your column to info later in your column. Do you not have enough faith that I'll finish the column? Get with it.
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Blown Calls
Another day, another blown post-season call to discuss. Is it just me or has the umpiring been unusually bad this year? Normally, i am a big booster of MLB umps. They generally do a wonderful job, and get calls correct in a split-second that it often takes we civilians a myriad of camera angles, and slow-motion to figure out. But this year, in the post-season, when MLB has trotted out their best umpires... It has been bad. It has really taken away from the game.
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Fox Announcers
Am I the only person who was bothered by the fact that Joe Buck and company had decided by the top of the 9th that the Astros were going to win and go on to the World Series? They spent more time talking about Larry Walker's retirement, Busch Stadium's history and the match-up against St. Louis (and oh yeah, Prison Break) than the actual game, despite the fact that St. Louis has shown that they can put together a fantastic comeback.
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The blown call
King, you're not going to like to hear me say this, but this is the kind of play for which there should be a review process for baseball.
It doesn't have to be "instant replay," I understand why you don't like that. I don't want to see an umpire on the sidelines looking into a box, like they do in NFL games. But how about having an extra umpire in a booth to do booth review? Managers shouldn't be able to ask for review, and it shouldn't be review of balls and strikes. But I have no problem with an extra umpire in a booth who can review things like caught balls for outs, home run or not, safe or not, and tagged out or not.
This umpire should only come into play in situations where the call is clearly wrong on the field, as it was with the missed tag on Molina. And the booth umpire should have to make the call before the pitcher throws his next pitch, so as not to interrupt the flow.
If done right, this wouldn't affect the flow of the game more than any other meeting of the umpires to get the call right.
Having said that, the Cards weren't going to win anyway. It's time for us Cards fans to root for the White Sox so our rival Cubs can sit alone on the pedestal of historically sucky teams.
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Maybe change the organizational logic of umpiring?
Given that there are four umpires in postseason play, is there a reason that umpiring duties can't be divided up directionally rather than by bases? I.e., the ump on the right field line is responsible for calling plays on the first base side of second when the play blocks the view of the umpire behind second, the third base ump for plays on the other side in the same situation, etc.
I know it wouldn't work in regular season play, and God knows Scooter the Talking Baseball could never explain vector-based umpiring to us, the morons at home. But having umps call only plays they actually see seems like a modest first step before resorting to something as foul as "instant" replay.
And, yes, I know this will never happen.
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blown call
The call at second base in last night's game was simply horrendous. A classic example of an ump making a call based on a guess, not what he actually saw. A bad call, like the one last night, has the undisputed potential to cost a team a run or two, if not more. As we saw with the White Sox-Angels and the "dropped" third strike, bad calls can swing a game and a series. although the Sox won the next three, if the Angels win game 2, the series is still only 3-2 White Sox and the Angels are still in it.
Based on these two calls I'm changing my position on instant replay. I say it needs to be used in the playoffs, and perhaps the regular season. The stakes are too big and it damages the credibility of the game to have a series affected by a blown call. I know that bad calls are a part of the game's lore and they make some games and series more memorable than they otherwise would be and I appreciate that. The '85 Denkinger call is the best example. To me it damages the game when I watch the world series and know that the Astros needed a little help to get to the World Series and to beat a team that was better than they were all year. They supposedly pick the best umps to work in the playoffs. why not pick the best ump there is, the camera.
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blown call?
I'm probably in the minority on this, but I don't think that the call at second base was "definitively" blown. The JPEG referenced in today's column certainly isn't definitive -- in fact, it looks like the glove could be touching Molina's right forearm. And the replay shown on TV was also from a weird angle: I never saw daylight between Everett's glove and Molina. I wish they had shown another angle; I'm sure they had one.
Charles
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Ask a player
That call with Everett at 2nd last night brings up an ongoing issue with me. He obviously missed the tag, yet feigned like he did. He is universally credited by pundits for a wily move - a move which, at its essence, fooled the ump.
Am I the only one who thinks we need to re-evaluate sportsmanship? Why is Everett lauded, rather than denounced? Is it too much to ask that once - just once - a player comes clean with an ump/ref? How about a guy saying, "nope, I missed him" - or "sorry, it hit the ground first" or "my bad ref - that was out of bounds off me".
At its core, trying to fake out an official, be it by insisting you caught a ball, made a tag, were hit by a pitch, didn't cause a ball to go out of bounds, etc. when the opposite is true (and known to the player to be so) is simply cheating. Why can't we acknowledge this and condemn it?
Brian
P.S. At least Everett has the decency to claim (even if he is obviously lying) that he thought he made the tag...this is better than the wink-wink, nudge-nudge acknowledgment that a lot of players engage in after the game with reporters...