Argument for Instant Replay gets stronger

1) Watch this video.

2) Tell me what you see.

If you saw the same thing I saw, you saw a) a short hop to Ryan Howard, b) no stepping on first base, and c) a throw wide of second base.

In theory, the Yankees should have bases loaded, one out, with Mark Teixeira at bat.


Instead, the play was ruled a double play--that Howard caught the ball and tagged the runner--and instead of being able to expand their lead and perhaps momentarily avoid using Mariano Rivera, the Yankees had to call on their 39 year-old closer for a 39 pitch save.

I was seated in the right field grandstand last night (check the photos from the post below), and, with Howard's back to me, I knew it was a blown call.

How did I know? If it really was a double play, Howard had utterly no reason to throw to second base.


It seems, that with every round there' yet another botched call, and each one increasing in severity after the last.

It has now gotten to the point where every play, even ones that should be utterly routine, have become the subject of much dissection.

Umpiring along with journalism has one single, cardinal rule: never become the story.

Alas, in the 2009 postseason, the umpires have.

Some More Notes on the World Series

I have got to update this thing more often, my apologies.

Anyway, due to various personal reason I haven't been able to watch the World Series as well or as closely as I'd like, but from what I have seen:

• It's obvious that at the end of Game Three, Evan Longoria wasn't trying to throw it to Home Plate, he was simply trying to throw it to the fifth infielder

• Where did the power go from the Tampa bats? Maybe I've just been missing it because I haven't been watching so closely, but it felt like Tampa slugged their way to the World Series, and now they're dying a whimpery death.

• After Ryan Howard was busy making Alex Rodriguez look clutch, he's now exploded, proving that good things come to those who are not named Alex Rodriguez.

• The umpiring has not exactly been great.

So now Philadelphia needs just one more win to bring their city their first major sports title since...well, their first major title in my lifetime.

However, given that it's been a really sort of strange baseball year, don't count the Series over just yet...although the sooner it is, the sooner we can fire up the Hot Stove...

Phighting Their Way to a Game One Win

It was a close thing.

In a game that was without a doubt the epitome of a pitcher's duel, the Phillies used a solid starting performance from Cole Hamels as well as a key caught stealing to pull out a 3-2 Game One win over the Tampa Bay Rays.

In doing so, they've stolen the home field advantage for themselves and now can rest a little easier going into Game Two.

Some points:

• Ryan Howard has got to get his act together. It's one thing not to hit and quite another for the other team to walk Chase Utley to get to him. In the AL park the slump can be obscured by the DH, but the moment they get to Philadelphia, the Rays will have a phield field day with the Phillies if there are two automatic outs in the line up...

• While I'm all for mixing and matching pitchers when the situation warrants, I didn't quite get Maddon's almost Spring Training-like approach to the ninth inning. Granted, in the World Series, everyone is available...but I don't know...I think more than anything Maddon illustrated the lack of a solid back end of the bullpen for the Rays

• That caught stealing looms huge now, but Hamels was really, really close to a balk. The city of Philadelphia should be thanking the umpires for that ones.

• Since the strike in 1994, a National League team has won the World Series in 1995, 1997, 2001, 2003 and 2006--five times in thirteen tries. Of those five wins, only once (the Cardinals in 2006) did the National League team win it in fewer then six games. Conversley, of the eight years an American League team won, only twice did the AL team need more than five games to win the series (the Yankees in 1996 and the Angels in 2002). This might mean nothing, but I found the quirk interesting.