Angels Get Hosed

[OldDad]

The White Sox caught a break last night on a terrible call by the homeplate umpire.  Too bad they don't have instant replay in baseball.

I was impressed with Mike Sciosia after the game - he refused to blame the loss on the ump or the bad call, and said if you play well enough you overcome such things.

The guy's a class act.

OD

[tidbit]

shouldn't this be in the Theology section?

[Mere Nick]

That call stunk.  The ump should be checked out to see if he's Al Qaeda.

Sciosia seems to have handled well seeing as how he didn't take a bat to that ump's noggin.

[spurly]

What happened?  I didn't see it.

[Dennis]

What happened?  I didn't see it.

That's what the ump said.

[rick6886]

What happened?  I didn't see it.

Game 2 ALCS, Bottom of the 9th, 2 out, game tied at 1. White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzinski swings at strike 3 which is a real low pitch. The umpire closes his fist to signal the third out. Thinking the inning is over Angels catcher Josh Paul rolls the ball towards the mound and heads for the dugout, at the same time Pierzinski breaks for 1st base thinking Paul dropped the ball (if you drop strike 3 the batter may attempt to take 1st base). Pierzinski reaches 1st base safely since Paul rolled the ball to the mound. After Pierzinski reaches 1st base Home Plate Umpire Doug Eddings rules Pierzinski safe even though he had closed his fist signalling the third out. The Angels explode and rightfully so...

The umpire made 2 mistakes on one play, first he closed his fist to signal the third out, the play is over and it is a dead ball right then and there, he should have never been influenced by the "hustle" of Pierzinski. Second replay clearly bears out that Paul never dropped the ball, it was low but he caught it clean. He should of gotten help form the 2nd base umpire who would have seen this clearly. Had the ball been ruled caught correctly in the first place none of the fiasco that ensued would have happened.

Of course the next batter Joe Crede smashes a double off the left field wall and the pinch runner for Pierzinski scores and the White Sox "steal" a game away from the Angels...

Probably the worst call in a game of this magnitude since Game 6 of the Royals and the Cards in '85...

[rick6886]

What happened?  I didn't see it.

That's what the ump said.[/color]

::

NICE!!!!!!

[rick6886]

Another problem ensues for the White Sox, if they win this series everyone is going to say it was because of poor umpiring not of their own merit...

[spurly]

Can't that be appealed to MLB's office?  That would be overturned in a heartbeat.

[rick6886]

MLB will always back their umpires no matter how wrong they are, just ask the Orioles who are still waiting for an apology from about 10 years ago... A 12 year old kid in Yankee Stadium reached over the right field fence and grabbed the ball on what would have clearly been an easy fly out. The Right Field umpire ruled the ball would have gone over the fence and gave Derek Jeter a home run. The Orioles protested, MLB could have done the right thing and called Jeter out and made them replay that game from the point of that out, but instead they stood by the Umpires and the Orioles lost the ALCS to the Yankees...

[rick6886]

In fact here is an article on ESPN

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/playoffs2005/news/story?id=2190652

the last paragraph clearly states that Mike Port, MLB's VP of umpiring says Eddings did nothing wrong...

ok Mike Port if you really want to believe that, most of us casual observers can figure out when someone screws up... I think baseball should go to instant replay, each bench gets one challenge per game...

Rick