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 Post subject: Pierzynski's peregrination
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 12:51 pm 
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Last night's game is sure to resurrect the idea of instant replays in baseball, especially if the Sox go on to win the series.

Me personally, I'm agin it. The game's too slow for many people already. And replays would violate the anti-technological spirit of the game.

If they want to make improvements, lose the designated hitter and the product races on the Jumbotron between innings. Then lose the Jumbotrons.

What say you all?

On the play itself, A.J.'s little trot up the baseline obviously short-circuited the umpire's brain.


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PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:13 pm 
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Once Scioscia finally returned to his dugout and Pierzynski was replaced by pinch runner Pablo Ozuna, there was still the matter of the Angels having to face Crede with the go-ahead run on first base and two outs. (Washington Post)


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:14 pm 
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I agree. I wouldn't want to see instant replay, and I despise the DH.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:26 pm 
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I'm also against replays, though I have to admit the benefits of them crossed my mind last night.

Clearly, Eddings made the wrong call, for whatever reason. And while I normally don't agree with "The umpire gave away the game," when a ball club gets an extra out on what should've been the final out, there's a lot of truth to it. Yes, Ozuna still had to steal second and Crede still had to get the hit, but if Eddings hadn't been "confused," they wouldn't have had those chances.

One solution would be to have an arbitrator hidden away, perhaps on the press level, armed with a monitor. His or her decisions would be irrefutable, and only the chief umpire would have the power to call for them. I don't think that'd offend baseball's integrity or traditions, and it wouldn't dampen Hot Stove League debates either.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:34 pm 
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I'm not sure that Pierzynski's run to first made the umpire change his mind. It seems to me that Eddings' only error (not to diminish it) was in incorrectly ruling that Angels catcher Josh Paul trapped the third strike off the ground. What Eddings' hand signal looked like to those of us watching on television is not relevant. If he didn't actually say that Pierzynski was out (and I've heard nobody allege that he did), then equal blame falls on Paul for not tagging Pierzynski or throwing the ball to first base. If you don't hear the umpire say "out," you shouldn't return to the dugout. The rest of the Angels presumably took their cue when they saw their catcher toss the baseball back to the mound.

Plenty of umpires have strike calls that look like "out" pumps. I'm a little puzzled by the people (including some former players on Baseball Tonight) reacting to this as a novelty. So I'm not convinced that the umpire changed his call or did anything that ought to have been confusing to Paul. Also remember that the umpire was behind Paul, so the hand signals could not have confused him. As I understand it, he heard "strike three," but not "you're out."

The dropped-third-strike call was wrong, no question. But after that, I think the umpire let it play out as he should have; namely, he waited to see if the players would notice he hadn't called the batter out (the umpires explained after the game that Pierzynski had the right to take his base up until he returned to his dugout, at which point he would have been out for leaving the field of play). If the defense had been as heads-up as the batter, it would not have affected the outcome.

As for the use of instant replay, I'll defer to Thomas Boswell's famous column, "Why Is Baseball So Much Better Than Football?" (Wash. Post, Jan. 19, 1987), in which he answered his question with 99 reasons. Reasons Nos. 49 and 50:

Thomas Boswell wrote:
49 Baseball has no penalties at all. A home run is a home run. You cheer. In football, on a score, you look for flags. If there's one, who's it on? When can we cheer? Football acts can all be repealed. Baseball acts stand forever.

50 Instant replays. Just when we thought there couldn't be anything worse than penalties, we get instant replays of penalties. Talk about a bad joke. Now any play, even one with no flags, can be called back. Even a flag itself can, after five minutes of boring delay, be nullified. NFL time has entered the Twilight Zone. Nothing is real; everything is hypothetical.


Parts of the column are a bit dated, but it still makes for pleasant reading, especially in the dead of winter. Complete column.


Last edited by Matthew Grieco on Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 1:59 pm 
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It could be argued that the defense — Paul, anyway — was as heads-up as Pierzynski, that Paul tossed the ball to the mound to make Eddings think he'd caught the pitch cleanly.

But I'm just guessing.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:02 pm 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
Thomas Boswell wrote:
49 Baseball has no penalties at all. A home run is a home run.

I've long admired Boswell's writing, but here, he obviously forgot about George Brett.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:10 pm 
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True. But the fact that the Brett call stands out so much -- and was eventually reversed on appeal -- only emphasizes how rare such moments are in baseball.

As for Paul being heads-up, I don't think trying to psych out the ump -- and I'm not sure Paul was throwing the ball with that in mind -- is as heads-up as the act of running to first. Heads-up would have been tagging Pierzynski, which most catchers would do if there's any doubt about the call.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 2:26 pm 
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I'm not sure he did, either. But you make a good point, one I hadn't considered.

(I hate it when I fail to consider anything in baseball.)


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:23 pm 
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I am endlessly amused by the state-by-state maps generated by ESPN's online "polls."


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 3:30 pm 
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Incidentally, the rule is even more specific as to this situation than I thought:

The Official Major League Rules Book wrote:
Third Strike Rule 6.09 (b): The batter becomes a runner when the third strike called by the umpire is not caught ... When a batter becomes a base runner on a third strike not caught by the catcher and starts for the dugout, or his position, and then realizes his situation and then attempts to reach first base, he is not out unless he or first base is tagged before he reaches first base. If, however, he actually reaches the dugout or dugout steps, he may not then attempt to go to first base and shall be out.


Well, there you have it. The umps weren't BSing. The rules clearly put the burden on the players to pay attention. Given that the rules specifically address the situation of a batter who takes some time to "realize his situation," and put a clear limit on how long the runner has to come to that realization (up until he reaches the dugout), I think the argument that Eddings didn't change his call and simply let the players figure it out is even stronger. It just so happened that the batter was himself a catcher who knew the rule, and the Angels either didn't or weren't thinking.

Seems to me the abuse Eddings is getting for everything after blowing the initial call -- a call that is unfortunate but forgiveable, given how tough that call is from the umpire's POV -- is quite unfair.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:28 pm 
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It was certainly a bizarre way to win or lose a game. Pretty much everyone agreed on that. ("Dan Wetzel," Yahoo)

***Bizarre, perhaps. But the White Sox did not win the game on that call. They won because the pinch runner stole second and the batter got a hit, scoring the pinch runner.***

But hey, things aren't always what they seem in Chicago -- home of the Black Sox scandal, Al Capone and at least one or two shady elections.
What's one more controversy to the Second City?
(Mike Fitzpatrick, AP)

***Oh, shut up.***


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 5:33 pm 
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Oeditpus Rex wrote:
Clearly, Eddings made the wrong call, for whatever reason


I disagree -- it was not "clearly" the wrong call. If you look at the ball as it's going into the glove, the ball is just above the ground. Then the glove starts to close around the ball, we lose sight of the ball for a frame or two, and the next time we see the ball, it is rather high in the pocket of the mitt. Could the ball have hit the ground and bounced after we initially lose sight of it? Maybe. Was it a clean catch? Maybe. Can we tell without a doubt from the replay? No.

As a (now retired) ten-year umpire (high school and college) and a three-year editor at an officiating publication, I can tell you that this is one of the toughest calls to make as a plate umpire. And as a base umpire it's also tough to see.

Eddings made his call (no, he was not swayed by the catcher or the hitter), and good or bad, it's all on the catcher (Paul) to make the right play. Any good catcher will do one of two things in a close catch/no catch play like that one: He will bring up his glove and show the umpire, in which case Eddings would have told him no catch (and the tag would have been promptly made); or he would have simply tagged the batter to make sure. Paul blew this play 100 percent, and the Angels lost purely because of him -- not because of umpiring.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 6:36 pm 
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That's right. It was not "clearly" the wrong call. That ball could have been a trap. And correct, no one says they heard the ump say "out."

I had just been opining two innings earlier to a friend at the bar that Scioscia is probably a better strategist in a series like this. But then, why did he have his third-string catcher in the game? Molina might be sore, but still. That third-string catcher couldn't even get the ball out of his glove to throw out the pinch-runner at second.

Every veteran catcher, almost by instinct, when a pitch like that is anywhere near the dirt, tags the batter. It's a boneheaded move to run off the field and toss the ball to the mound.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 7:38 pm 
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When I was 14, our manager (a Double-A pitcher until he blew out his arm) taught us to take two steps toward the dugout and then break toward first on such a play. Don't look to see if the catcher is chasing you or if he's throwing to third or to first or to the mound. Just go. The umpire will let you know while you're running if you're out. Until then, run.

Yes, if there's any chance of confusion, the catcher should tag the batter out. The first baseman should go the bag in case of a throw.
The catcher could have avoided this mess with a simple tag.

But the ump's signals confused me. Yes, he has an odd strike signal. But after he gave that, he made what looked like a pump, which could only mean an out.

I agree with those opposed to instant replay in baseball. Too slow.

Life isn't fair. Stuff happens. Play ball.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Thu Oct 13, 2005 11:34 pm 
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The AP wrote:
NEW YORK -- Given another chance, umpire Doug Eddings said he would've been more emphatic in making the call that helped the Chicago White Sox win Game 2 of the American League Championship Series.

"The only thing I'm down on myself is I should have sold it either way," Eddings told The New York Times for a story posted on its Web site Thursday night, a day after Chicago beat the Los Angeles Angels 2-1 to pull even in the best-of-seven series.

"I should have either said, 'No catch,' or, if I did have a catch, that he was out. Which I never said: 'He's out,' " Eddings said.

Eddings was escorted by two Orange County sheriffs and a Major League Baseball security officer as he exited the flight from Chicago, the newspaper said.

White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski struck out swinging with two outs in the bottom of the ninth Wednesday night, but he hustled to first and was safe because Eddings ruled the pitch was not gloved cleanly.

Thinking the inning was over, Angels catcher Josh Paul had rolled the ball to the mound with the Angels already coming off the field. Eddings' call stood and Pierzynski scored the winning run on Joe Crede's double.

Eddings told the newspaper that he planned to change his style to more clearly reflect the difference between calling a strike and calling a batter out.

Plate umpires are trained to shout "No catch!" or indicate that the ball is in play after a swinging strike; Eddings, who has maintained that he was right in saying the ball hit the dirt before Paul gloved it, was silent.

Mike Port, baseball's vice president of umpiring, told The Associated Press on Thursday that Eddings did nothing wrong and that umpires are not required to audibly call "No catch."


Seems reasonable enough to me. I'm satisfied with Eddings' statement, which is more helpful than his comments immediately after the game.

I note in passing that this story erroneously states that Pierzynski scored the winning run. A pinch runner actually scored the run.

Original New York Times story here.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 3:07 am 
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jjmoney62 wrote:
Every veteran catcher, almost by instinct, when a pitch like that is anywhere near the dirt, tags the batter. It's a boneheaded move to run off the field and toss the ball to the mound.

That just tells me there was no question in Paul's mind that it was a clean catch.

There's no question in mine, either. When I said "clearly," I meant it was clear to me. Apparently it was also clear to a few million others.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:08 am 
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Being that certain about things isn't a good trait in a catcher, I would venture to say.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:25 am 
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The catcher not making sure of the last out is dumb baseball.

Reggie Jackson gently tossing a hip into the path of the ball to break up a double play is smart baseball.

The umpires do the best they can in real time to sort it all out.

"Smart" wins. "Dumb" loses.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 8:41 am 
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I realize my last statement could be taken two ways.

Making sure is a good trait in a catcher.

Being sure without making sure is a bad trait in a catcher. That was what I meant in response to Oeditpus. That Paul had no doubt he caught the ball is no defense for him.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:29 am 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
I realize my last statement could be taken two ways.

Making sure is a good trait in a catcher.

Being sure without making sure is a bad trait in a catcher. That was what I meant in response to Oeditpus. That Paul had no doubt he caught the ball is no defense for him.


I actually think it IS a defense for him. The end of the game was so unsatisfying partly because everyone acted reasonably--except that the ump missed that the ball was caught cleanly.

If you catch a third strike cleanly, hear "STRIKE THREE," and see everyone walk off the field, you are not going to "make sure" the inning is over. It's over. Perhaps in some abstract sense you should, but 999 out of 1,000 catchers won't--and they will always be right.This was just a freak case where the ump missed the call.(And since he missed it honestly, it's hard to jump on him.)

Baseball, as some people have said, will probably ask umps to be clearer in such situations. My experience playing baseball and watching it (despite what some umps are now saying) has always been that umps wait until players notice a dropped third strike, or a missed tag, or a missed bag. But will being clearer work? If umps start yelling, "he dropped the third strike!" that will let off the hook lazy sods like Manny Ramirez, who never run in such situations. And yelling "he missed second base!" takes the fun out of those after-the-play appeals (it's up to players to notice the missed base).

I think that call was just a once-in-a-million fluke, perhaps unavoidable.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 9:51 am 
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Cthomas wrote:
If you catch a third strike cleanly, hear "STRIKE THREE," and see everyone walk off the field, you are not going to "make sure" the inning is over. It's over. Perhaps in some abstract sense you should, but 999 out of 1,000 catchers won't--and they will always be right.This was just a freak case where the ump missed the call.(And since he missed it honestly, it's hard to jump on him.)



Sorry, C, but that's just wrong. 999 out of 1,000 catchers instinctively make the tag or check with the ump. "Strike three" doesn't signal the end of an inning. "You're out" does. My 9-year-old nephew, who is a catcher, knows that.

And the catcher is the field general. He doesn't follow the rest of the team.


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:03 pm 
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Hmm. If it was all so simple we wouldn't have this brouhaha, I suspect.

What do you think of this idea of having umps be "clearer" about dropped third strikes, missed tags, and the like? Eddings(?), the ump, says that's what he wishes he had done. I think it's part of the charm of baseball that umps say nothing in these cases, and act only if the players realize what's going on. In other words, it should be up to the hitter to run to first on his own (as he did in this case).


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 12:33 pm 
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I think the only thing that failed here is the inexperienced catcher. (No matter what the "millions" say, that replay is not definitive; the ball could have grazed the dirt.)

I will say that after the play happened I had to admit I didn't know what, if anything, an umpire is instructed to do or say when there's a dropped third strike. It's probably best that he say nothing but "strike three."

But the more this gets hashed out, the more it's clear that this wasn't really a freak occurrence at all. And it's clear that the rules work. If you just play until the umpire says "out" you'll be OK. Again, as many of us learned in Little League, that's an easy rule to follow.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:27 pm 
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jjmoney62 wrote:
Cthomas wrote:
If you catch a third strike cleanly, hear "STRIKE THREE," and see everyone walk off the field, you are not going to "make sure" the inning is over. It's over. Perhaps in some abstract sense you should, but 999 out of 1,000 catchers won't--and they will always be right.This was just a freak case where the ump missed the call.(And since he missed it honestly, it's hard to jump on him.)



Sorry, C, but that's just wrong.

It's absolutely right. Last I heard, three strikes were an out and there were three outs in an inning. Whadya gotta do, turn around and ask the umpire, "Please, sir, may I leave the playing field?"


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 Post subject:
PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 2:45 pm 
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Oeditpus Rex wrote:
jjmoney62 wrote:
Cthomas wrote:
If you catch a third strike cleanly, hear "STRIKE THREE," and see everyone walk off the field, you are not going to "make sure" the inning is over. It's over. Perhaps in some abstract sense you should, but 999 out of 1,000 catchers won't--and they will always be right.This was just a freak case where the ump missed the call.(And since he missed it honestly, it's hard to jump on him.)



Sorry, C, but that's just wrong.

It's absolutely right. Last I heard, three strikes were an out and there were three outs in an inning. Whadya gotta do, turn around and ask the umpire, "Please, sir, may I leave the playing field?"



Nope. Three strikes are an out only if the ball sticks in the catcher's mitt.

Regardless of whether the call was right or wrong, the burden is on the catcher. There's a reason this is such an oddball play, and it's that -- as noted earlier -- 99 percent of the time on a close play the catcher DOES check with the ump, and whether right or wrong the catcher proceeds with the play. Catchers from high school to the majors know better than to do what Paul did. Regardless of whether he caught it or not, Paul's glove was in the dirt -- that makes it a close play.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 3:07 pm 
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JeffW wrote:
Regardless of whether the call was right or wrong, the burden is on the catcher.

<snip>

Regardless of whether he caught it or not, Paul's glove was in the dirt -- that makes it a close play.

OK, so Paul's mistake was assuming Eddings wouldn't muck the whole thing up. I accept that.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 3:24 pm 
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No, Josh Paul's mistake was being cocksure. It was his unjustifiably certain attitude that made Eddings look bad. All players know that no matter how sure they are of themselves, the umpire decides what has occurred. And as jjmoney points out, the catcher is the field general. When he threw the ball back to the mound prematurely, it created the appearance to his teammates and to all spectators that the inning must be over. Except it wasn't over, and Paul's actions created the mistaken impression, now hard to dislodge from the minds of millions, that Eddings changed his call.

I asked a major-league player this exact question Thursday night on ESPN's live chat during Game 2 of the NLCS:

Quote:
Matthew (NYC): Jeff, if you're an infielder in the situation the Angels were in last night, do you take your cue from the ump or from your own catcher? Did the Angels run off the field because they saw Josh Paul toss the ball back to the mound?

Jeff Cirillo: Yeah. There's a delay there, I mean, that was a great play by A.J. Pier -- OH WOW, what a catch by Edmonds! That's the thing about the Cards, to beat them in a baseball game, you have to beat them. They aren't going to beat themselves. That's an unbelievable play --

Jeff Cirillo: about AJ, being a catcher, he knows the situation and I heard him say that in San Fran, he got burned by a play like that earlier this year. So, he knows that situation. You're programed as an infielder, the catcher rolls the ball and you run off the field, that's the sequence of events, that's how it happens. You're wired that way.


So if only Paul had tagged the batter -- and as we've discussed, there is not one reason why he shouldn't have, not having heard the word "out" -- nobody would ever have gotten the mistaken impression that Eddings did anything amiss at all. And although I agree with you that the ball clearly looked like a clean catch, there's a consensus that it's one of the hardest calls for an umpire to make. So a catcher is never justified in not tagging the batter when the ball comes that close to the ground -- unless he's already heard the umpire utter the words "strike three" followed by "you're out." When the catcher abdicates this responsibility, he throws everyone else off.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:14 pm 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
So if only Paul had tagged the batter -- and as we've discussed, there is not one reason why he shouldn't have, not having heard the word "out" -- nobody would ever have gotten the mistaken impression that Eddings did anything amiss at all.


I don't totally disagree with your position, but I think you're being a bit hard on Paul. There IS a reason he didn't tag the batter, and that's because (if we believe him) he was sure he caught the ball. If the pitch was right down the middle, he wouldn't have tagged the batter either. From his perspective, if you believe him--forget the replays--it was an obviously clean catch, so there's no reason to even think of tagging the batter.

But as I say, I'm moving toward your view.

Also, check out the Chicago Tribune interview with Eddings. (Sorry, no link: I read it this morning.) His story seems to change with every telling: First he says he wasn't sure whether the ball bounced, and looked at the players for their reaction; later, pressed, he says he clearly saw it bounce.

We'll never know, but it's possible he, too, was sure the inning was over until the hitter took off. Then he bluffed his way through the subsequent events.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 4:21 pm 
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Cthomas wrote:
it's possible he, too, was sure the inning was over until the hitter took off


I'll believe that when, and only when, someone alleges that they heard him call the batter out. So far, there's been a deafening (and telling) silence from the Angels in that regard.


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PostPosted: Fri Oct 14, 2005 5:56 pm 
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Well, it seems I've joined this fray a little late, but I had the day off yesterday.

Quote:
Clearly, Eddings made the wrong call, for whatever reason. And while I normally don't agree with "The umpire gave away the game," when a ball club gets an extra out on what should've been the final out, there's a lot of truth to it. Yes, Ozuna still had to steal second and Crede still had to get the hit, but if Eddings hadn't been "confused," they wouldn't have had those chances.


I don't think Eddings made the wrong call. I do think his "strike three" motion should be different from his "out" motion, and I've noticed before this situation that a lot of umpires purposefully make a pronounced, different motion when calling a batter out on strikes. As everyone learned in elementary school, it's not "three strikes, you're out," it's "three strikes cleanly caught, you're out." Furthermore, it's not conclusive to me that the ball didn't hit the dirt, so I'm not sure that replay would have helped in this situation.

As someone who has a bias toward these situations (for more information, see the 1985 World Series), I'm inclined to agree with a couple of managers and players interviewed on SportsCenter last night, which had a story on this very topic. They said they thought it might be a good idea to have instant replay brought back for the playoffs, where each close call carries much bigger consequences. In fact, during that story, they showed footage of an ump who checked a camera monitor for conclusive evidence of a home run after nobody else on his team could call it one way or another for sure.

Thomas Boswell wrote:
49 Baseball has no penalties at all. A home run is a home run. You cheer.


Tell that to the fans in Atlanta, where Ausmus's ninth-inning tying home run was only showed to be a correctly ruled home run after footage verified the ball barely hit the wall above the home-run line. Or tell that to Brian Jordan, who had a home run that hit the fair pole called foul earlier this year. Or tell that to Baltimore fans, who watched a catchable ball called a home run in 1996.

Remember, kids, always use two hands to catch the ball, and always tag the batter on strike three if you don't hear "out" called.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 2:36 pm 
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(Fearing this topic will be locked by our own Doug Eddings forthwith)

It looked to me as if the ball took a weird hop at the last second before it disappeared into Paul's mitt, but there's no way Eddings could have seen that. Was it Escobar's naturally moving pitch, or did the ball hit the ground? Who knows?

Yes, Paul deserves some blame for not making sure he tagged the batter, given where he caught the ball.

Yes, the White Sox still had to steal second and get the game-winning hit. Eddings isn't the one who lost the game for the Angels.

But Eddings' hand motions are what's truly bizarre. That horizontal motion (which I read he calls his "strike three mechanic," whatever that is) should not have been followed by the fist pump, which to all baseball players and fans signifies "out." He should either use the "phone-book rip" motion that most plate umpires use or, even better in a case like this where he's not sure there was a catch or is sure there wasn't a catch, no motion at all. THEN everyone would have a better case for piling on Josh Paul.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 3:10 pm 
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But wordygurdy, Paul couldn't see what Eddings was doing. The umpire was behind him. So Eddings' motion is irrelevant to what Paul did. Everyone else on the planet might have a case against Eddings for confusing them, but not the guy who mattered.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 3:19 pm 
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Matthew Grieco wrote:
But wordygurdy, Paul couldn't see what Eddings was doing. The umpire was behind him. So Eddings' motion is irrelevant to what Paul did. Everyone else on the planet might have a case against Eddings for confusing them, but not the guy who mattered.


Well, Paul could have seen Eddings' fist pump out of the corner of his eye. And even if he didn't, the other Angels fielders saw Eddings' fist pump. What were they to make of that?

I'm not absolving Paul, just saying that Eddings deserves a good portion of the blame.


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PostPosted: Sat Oct 15, 2005 3:39 pm 
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Having never been a catcher myself, I'm not sure how good the peripheral vision is in a face-mask, but I can't imagine it's all that great. And as noted earlier in the thread, the other fielders would have been looking to their catcher, not to the umpire, for the clear signal that the inning was over.


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