Sports Stories
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It was a shame that after last night’s game between the White Sox and the Angels, the only thing that people wanted to talk about was the controversial call.
It was the bottom of the ninth, two outs, and two strikes on the batter. The pitch comes and it is a slider, low to the ground. The batter swings and misses badly and turns as if to go to the dugout to prepare for the next inning. The catcher rolls the ball back to the mound and jogs to the dugout. The pitcher begins making his way off the field as does the rest of the team. The umpire has stuck his right arm out to the side to indicate a swing and a miss and then pumps his fist to indicate the out… or does he?
All of a sudden, the batter turns around and takes off for first base, by this time, the closest player to the ball is either the third baseman or shortstop who sees what is happening and quickly picks up the ball, but he is too late. The home plate umpire has moved into the field of play in front of the plate and points at first base, indicating that the runner does get the base.
The Angel’s manager immediately jumped out of the dugout and ran after the umpires. To be fair, the umpires really didn’t seem to know what was going on completely. The manager kept pumping his fist as if that was an indicator that the batter was out and the play was over. After many minutes of arguing, the runner remained at first and the game continued. White Sox manager Guillen knew that he must capitalize on his good fortune and immediately pinch ran for the catcher who stood on first with one of his more speedy players. He quickly had the player steal second base. This was relatively easy, as the runner got a great jump on the pitcher and the catcher double pumped. Therefore, the runner reached second without a throw. The batter then drove a ball off the wall in left to plate the runner for a 2-1 victory.
After the game, you knew that the press were salivating over the possible controversy and it didn’t take them long to work themselves into a fury. They went after every person involved in the play and tried to get them to bad mouth the other side. I heard repeatedly, the question as to whether or not the game was stolen. To this point I answer yes. The game was stolen, when the pinch runner took second base without a throw, allowing him to score easily in the double that ensued. As to their answers, you could tell by the reactions that the Angels’ thought that it was, but none of them were juvenile enough to come out and say it, while the White Sox all had sly smiles and didn’t want to talk much about it.
The thing that really makes me mad about this situation is how the media handled it. I watched the game and had to have seen 100 replays of the pitch in the past 12 hours and I can’t understand the reaction to the play. Both teams did fairly well in handling the situation after the fact, as did the umpires(although their post game news conference was a bit shaky) however the media acted like children egging on two hesitant combatants to go at it to the death. They repeatedly made comment such as, “We have watched the play and the ball obviously did not hit the ground so…,” or, “Have you seen the replay? Did you realize that the call was wrong?”
I hate when the media gets like this. I after watching the replay numerous times I believe that the ball did hit the ground and I will get into why a bit later, but the thing that gets me is that if you watch it closely many times, the best you can get to a clean catch is saying that it was inconclusive. There is no clean cut call here, yet the media immediately tries to warp the perception of the play to create even more controversy to sell more newspapers and get higher ratings on television.
This also seemed apparent on ESPN. I used to love this station and thought that they not only had the best because they were the only main sports station, but they just strived overall for quality and gave good freedom to their journalists, however, after some of the things I have seen and heard on it recently, I am beginning to change my opinion a bit.
During the sports center after the game, the broadcaster, who was not Stuart Scott, kept stating that the umpire “claimed” that the ball either bounced or was trapped. Firstly the word claimed is an immediate indicator to his bias; I think this was just to get people riled up, though, not to challenge the man’s honor. Next was the fact that mere moments before he began opening topics on the game with this line, the umpire’s held their press conference where they made a point to distinguish that he umpire had stated that it hit the ground, not that it was trapped. I realize that this was not done by the broadcaster himself, but rather written by people there at ESPN, but it was a shame that they kept trying to stoke the fire of the incident rather than just discuss it.
This morning, I got a few new perspectives on the play while watching the ESPN2 show Cold Pizza. Skip stated one thing, which I agree with, then came Woody. He always uses the craziest and silliest stuff to try to win an argument and today was no exception. He stated that he talked to a friend at the game who had taken a picture showing clear evidence of the catch. The picture was blown up too big for the quality and was too pixilated to really see anything, except that the ball was already in the mitt and therefore irrelevant. I was surprised to see that for once Jay took Woody’s side in this one in thinking that the ball was caught.
They also talked to a retired umpire who had some good remarks on the play and on the call, but surprisingly in the end did not back up the umpire as much as I expected on the hand signal part of the discussion.
What I think happened and what should have happened.
As I watched the play unfold, at first I was a little confused and surprised at what was developing, however, 100 replays later, I think I have a decent bead on the situation. After the first twenty or so replays, I was pretty sure that the ball was low, but was caught by the catcher in the air, strike three, end of inning, let’s play extras.
However, after further review, my opinion began to change. From all angles that I could find except for one, the ball appeared to either be caught in the air or was inconclusive. However, there is one side angle that when slowed down, something different can be seen. The ball is sinking towards the dirt and about six inches from the glove the ball quickly goes from dropping down to rising up and the catcher actually grabs the ball about five inches off of the ground. This made me start questioning my earlier opinions on the play. After seeing this view again a few times, and having my brother clearly pointing it out to me, I was convinced. This was also pointed out by Skip on Cold Pizza this morning and nobody seemed to listen to him.
What they have been doing to try to discredit people that have given this opinion is to show the ball only entering the glove, showing shots that do not completely capture the action, and showing shots from bad angles where you cannot properly judge the movement of the ball. I saw this done to a couple of different people who saw the same thing and it was almost as if the stations did not want people who saw this to be heard so that they could keep the controversy going as long as possible.
Suck it up – Play the Game
I only hear a couple of people mention this during the “controversy” last night, but I want to come out and say it here. As a batter, on the third strike, if you are swinging and you miss and the ball is low you run to first. If you are out then the umpire will scream it and the play is over. However, the runner almost messed this up, he turned to go back to his dugout where he was quickly told to go to first and he complied.
On the other side, as a catcher, if there are two strikes and the ball is low and the batter swings and misses, you pop the tag on him just in case and if he tries to dip on you, just toss it to first. This play went sour because of the catcher. The catcher assumed that the play was over and rolled the ball to the mound. When he did this, everyone on his team assumed that the runner was out and began to go into the dugout, however, from everything we heard, the umpire never said, “out” and don’t even try to tell me that the fist pump confused anyone. The umpire signaled swing and a miss, and strike, it would have also been the same thing if the batter was out, but there would have been verbal cues. Instead of making sure like many catchers do, this one took it for granted and it ended up costing them the game.
In this situation I give very little credit to the batter, I give it to the catcher for not playing it out and for trying to make it seem like it was the umpire’s fault afterwards. I saw nothing in this that made me believe that the umpires were at fault in any of this and usually I am against the umpires in something like this. They had it under control and even though none of them actually saw whether or not the ball hit the ground, the home plate umpire went with what he thought was correct and ended up being right. It is a shame that this great game will only be talked about for this reason and people should move on. The game is over, there is no appeal, and the series is tied at 1-1 and it is going to be a good one. Let’s all just be happy that even though the Yankees and Red Sox are battling for the remote and potato chips the remainder of the post season, we are still getting some high quality baseball.