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Well MLB umpires have made another bonehead call, but this one really has my blood boiling. I am currently watching the Cleveland Indians play the New York Yankees in a game that is truly bullspit. It’s the seventh inning and Trevor Crow, Indians outfielder, has just been robbed of making a spectacular play at the right field wall.
Some stupid fan reached his glove over the wall and knocked Crowe’s glove out of the way. Crowe almost recovered and made the catch on the ground when the ball fell back into play. To my naked it eye, it was completely clear to see what had just happened. So why did I see some stupid ignoramus waving his finger around in the air signaling for a home run? Are you kidding me ump? I could’ve made that call from the space station and you had a perfect view of it.
So obviously I assumed Eric Wedge, Indians manager, would come out and protest and he did just that. I was ecstatic that the umpires actually convened and discussed whether or not to review and they ended up agreeing that the best thing to do was to take a look at the replay. So, I breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the umps would go look at the replay and rule that it wasn’t a homerun.
BUT THEY DIDN’T! THEY LEFT IT STANDING ON THE SCOREBOARD!
How can any competent person, umpire, or anyone with a functioning brain make that absurdly erroneous call? Because of that call the Indians, instead of being up one run in the seventh inning, they were down by a run. I mean, this is truly a game changing decision. How can you just rob the Indians of a hard fought game by being so completely blind?
It boggles my mind that two professional MLB umpires, with tons of experience, could actually look at a perfect replay of the dispute at hand, and actually uphold the decision of a homerun. I’m just so furious about this. Why even have replay in baseball if these obtuse umpires can’t make an obvious call about whether or not a homerun has been hit or not?
I’m not saying that the ball that Jorge Posada hit wasn’t going over the fence or even that Trevor Crowe would have caught the ball, but his glove was right there with the ball at the wall. He had the opportunity to make a great play and a fan clearly interfered with him. I’m tired of baseball always having problems with fan interference. I have a solution to all this interference nonsense. Remove the first rows from every area of the field where a fan has the potential to interfere with a play. There; problem solved.
I’m still trying to calm myself down about this, but I’m just in shock at the lack of intelligence that has just been displayed. I have no doubt now that the Yankees will win this game, and they shouldn’t. Hopefully in the future of instant replay in the MLB, these idiotic conclusions will not be made.
All that is left to be said is one name: Jeffrey Mayer. The right field wall in Yankees Stadium, new or old, is truly an enemy to all that dare challenge it.
-Sam Gerb
Sam can be reached at sgerb@ut.edu
If someone told me that Johan Santana would pitch 7 scoreless innings, giving up only 3 hits, 1 walk, and striking out 13 then I would put a substantial amount of money on a win for the New York Mets. But somehow once again, the Mets have managed to fail themselves and Johan’s brilliant pitching efforts. How can they lose when their ace pitches a gem like this? I mean for God sakes, he almost struck out 2 batters per inning.
As an avid Mets fan I am truly ashamed of their beyond poor effort tonight. Swing your bats for once when Johan is on the bump. They only have to face Florida Marlins pitcher Josh Johnson. I mean, he’s not that bad of a pitcher, but Johan can’t bring the RBIs in too. The heart of the lineup needs to step up their game a lot more if the Mets are to reach the playoffs this year.
The expectations could not be higher for them this season. Sports Illustrated picked them as their favorites to win the World Series, not to mention they are playing at a new state of the art stadium. Even with the Mets off to a lackluster start, I believe they will still pull off a close and ugly win of the NL East division. And hopefully at the very least they will take the NL wildcard, but they are a better team than that. But as all baseball fans know in the past, the Mets are not the most reliable team down the stretch.
Of course, it is so early in the season, but often you can get a feel for how the season is going to go. Obviously, I hope the best for the Mets, but things are going to have to change after tonight’s performance or else it will be another very disappointing season.
-Sam Gerb
Sam can be reached at sgerb@ut.edu
Curt Schilling, former Major League pitcher for the Phillies, Diamondbacks and Red Sox among others, retired from baseball this week via a post on his blog. Nobody is sure why he used his blog to retire, but that is not the most baffling part about this.
Schilling won 216 games in his career while compiling an MLB-record (min. 15 starts) 2.23 postseason ERA. He played in the Major Leagues for nearly 20 years and won three World Series. Most importantly, perhaps, he and his accomplishments were never implicated in a steroid scandal. In fact, he spoke out against illegal performance enhancers more than any other active player. So when ESPN announced the news of Schilling’s retirement, they displayed his name along with a picture of… Jose Canseco.
How is this for irony? One of the most blatant admitted cheaters in professional sports history gets face time for the retirement of one of baseball’s few advocates for cleaning up the game.
Schilling once said of Canseco, “Everything he ever did should be wiped clean. I think his MVP should go back and should go to the runner-up.”
Canseco responded, “He’s a complete hypocrite. Nobody takes him seriously.”
These two men with entirely different ideas about the game, especially about cheating within the game, are somehow linked again as Schilling retires. This was either a serious production gaffe on the part of ESPN or somebody in the control room playing mind games with him. In either case, somebody may find his or her self collecting unemployment checks soon.
If fans out there are lashing out over this, one could only imagine what Schilling thinks. Hopefully he receives word of this and he responds soon – that is, if he did not already fire a fastball through his television.
-Brenton Burkett
If you had told me when I was 10 that one day I would be in the Cincinnati Reds’ spring training clubhouse, I probably would’ve fainted or screamed myself hoarse.
But at 9:42 in the morning on Saturday Mar. 14, 2009, I entered the clubhouse at Ed Smith Stadium in Sarasota.
This was the first time I had visited such a place while I wasn’t dreaming.
I’ve known MLB Hall of Fame Writer Hal McCoy of the Dayton Daily News since I was young and met him for the first time when I was in fifth grade back in Dayton, Ohio. I’d only known him as the husband of one of my former teachers and the beat writer for the Reds at the local paper, but today he was my host and mentor.
When he opened the door to the clubhouse, time slowed down… or maybe it was just my heart speeding up. Either way, I was now standing in room with every kind of big league player: All-Stars, a Gold Glover and even a player with a World Series ring. Normally, the stench of sweat amplified by the searing Florida sun is enough to make me swallow my adam’s apple, but today it smelled as sweet as the freshly cut grass.
After Hal finished his morning blog for the DDN, we headed out to batting practice. Fans of all ages stopped to chat up Hal about spring trainings of years past and to have balls and cards autographed by a Hall of Famer.
When we did make it out to the backfield, I had another one of those time-slows-down moments. I’ve been to countless BP sessions as a fan, but I’ve never heard something so simple and sweet as a homerun swing from four feet away.
Just before we headed back to the media hospitality room (where I met another Cincinnati legend and Hall of Fame broadcaster Marty Brennaman), I noticed Reds’ OF Jay Bruce, 21, chatting with two young kids. Bruce, still a kid himself in Major League years, had a word of advice for those kids:
“Play hard everyday.”
I could only smile and shake my head, wondering if I had been in their shoes at that age to hear those words from someone like Ken Griffey Jr.
Time-slows-down moment three: Sitting in the press box during the pre-game ceremonies. Everything was all too perfect.
The ceremonial first pitch- a strike, right down the middle. The performance of “The Star-Spangled Banner”- as clear and crisp as the bright, blue sky. And the final touch to this surreal moment- a flock of white birds soaring past the right field fence during the final bars of the anthem.
And for the second time that day, I felt like a kid again.
-Michael Franz
Michael can be reached at mjfranz26@gmail.com
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