Worst umpiring ever.
Posted on 10/12/2005 8:24:45 PM PDT by navysealdad
As I have pointed out, Ozzie Guillen said he takes being lucky over being good. He knows this was pure luck of putting one over on the ump.
As I said as well, Mike Sciosia wasn't complaining.
Don't get all defensive over your acceptance of cheating to win.
As I said, we have to beat the dems voter fraud. If the other team cheats, they still have to be beat if they get away with it.
Angels didn't have a lead. They had no leeway for this sort of cheating, so they lost.
This is different than a blown call like 1985. This was the player pulling off the gag. It's like Rosie Ruiz or something.
SCOREBOARD
And goodnight. I'm off to bed...
Then the angel cathcer blew the play.
This ain;t a good way to win. If the Sox win in the tenth or 11th -- now that's a win. A momentum builder.
This, though, is like getting something that wasn't earned. Hardly something that is going to instill confidence.
I could clearly see the ball bounce up into the catchers glove on the zoomed in centerfield camera replay. I watched it again on my digital HDD recorder in slow motion on a slow motion replay (i.e. super slow motion) and comfirmed that. The Angels' catcher was no doubt unaware of the fact that the ball had short-hopped into his glove and assumed that he had made a clean catch. His big mistake, though, was not asking the umpire if the batter was out or simply tagging Pierzynski before rolling the ball out to the mound. No wonder he's a third stringer.
(By the way, I'm a Cardinals fans who is rooting for the Angels in the ALCS.)
The ump was simply signaling "no contact" with his right arm extended and then "strike" with the closed pulled down fist, which was the same "mechanic" (i.e. impire's technique) he used throughout the game whether the third strike was caught or not. Of course, the Angels' catcher didn't even wait for the fist before running off the field and rolling the ball to the mound -- even though he knew that his glove had made contact with the dirt and that the umpire hadn't called "batter's out". That's really stupid and it may have even shocked the umpire into ruling a no-catch!
Like it or not, a fist pump is now the preferred "strike call". (It used to be a right arm extended, which I prefer.) The TV guys, players, and managers who don't realize that are not keeping up with the game.
It could be an instinctive routine move to try to sell a strike out call to an umpire on a half swing on a low pitch. Pierzynski didn't make a half swing, but the catcher may not have known that since he's concentrating on the ball, not the batter. In any event it's a bonehead move by a third string catcher who must have known that his glove was in the dirt when he gloved the ball -- making it too close for assumptions.
Definitely the worst call I've ever seen in pro baseball. I've seen some doozies in football that are worse.
The ball certainly hit the dirt when Josh Paul rolled it back to be mound. A ball is not likely to be scuffed when it is trapped in the soft dirt behind the plate (anymore than it would be by being rolled back to the mound by a dumb third string catcher).
It was too close to call with the naked eye, but he determined it by watching Pierzynski run to 1st. At that point he had to either go with the veteran catcher batting or the third string catcher who had exercised gross negligence by presuming the oucome of a critical close call. At that point it was no longer a close call.
He never called him out. He merely called a third strike.
It may or may not have hit the ground, but the point is moot when the Ump GAVE THE OUT CALL.
That's not true.
One of the worst calls I have ever seen. This will go down with Game 3 of the '75 WS and Game 6 of the '85 series.
When it was agreed that the umpires screwed up the famous George Brett pine tar incident the rest of the game was replayed from the point of Brett's home run. Maybe they could do that. Yeah right.
Why did the ump call out the batter twice then, once with his arm extended horizontally, to indicate strike 3, and again with his arm vertical, making a fist? Answer that one for me.
"The ball hit the dirt mere inches from impacting the catcher's glove."
Where's the splash of dirt then? If the ball hit the ground at the (fast) speed it was going, there surely would have been some dust/dirt kicked up. No dust, no dirt. That ball did not hit the ground.
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