Play It Again, Bud!

Comedian Chris Rock mocked people who want credit for doing things that they are supposed to be doing in his 1996 HBO stand-up special, “Bring the Pain”. While the central theme of this segment of his show was a controversial, ethnic cultural commentary, this offshoot of Rock’s routine was not lost on the audience. 

“’I take care of my kids!’ You’re supposed to take care of your kids! … What do you want? A cookie!?!? … ‘I’ve never been to jail!’ You’re not supposed to go to jail, you low-expectation having motherfucker!”

This classic comedy is what came to mind when Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig announced that a proposal was put forward to expand MLB’s use of instant replay, expected to be approved by the owners. By “expand”, I mean actually make it meaningful and correct the bulk of common umpiring errors.

Caution: Contains strong language and graphic descriptions of adult situations. Viewer discretion is advised.

 

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

If you regularly read this blog, you know that I pull no punches with my general disapproval of Bud Selig. Still, even a broken clock is right twice per day. Selig and company, in my opinion, took a significant, historic step forward with this announcement.

Similar to the NFL, which began using instant replay in 1986, managers may challenge a call once during the first six innings of a game and twice after the sixth inning. Managers will not lose a challenge if they are correct. While I have not read some of the fine details, this sounds, on the surface, like a sensible system to ensure that critical calls are made properly.

MLB calls its replay expansion historic. The NFL called it "status quo" in the 1980s. 

EMBARRASSMENT VIA PROGRESS

The problem for MLB and Selig is that the sport has endured countless egregious missed calls in key, potentially historic situations that repeatedly put a stain on the game. Selig rigorously defended the effect of the “human element” in lending to the game’s historic charm. MLB found little public support among people not eligible for Social Security and Medicare. Baseball is a sport that is heavily rooted in tradition, but MLB has been of the position that tradition need not give way to common sense.

The NFL, which has had a reputation for evolving with technology, improving its product when the opportunity presents itself, and (drumroll) solving problems quickly when they arise, began using instant replay 27 years ago. After a minority of owners suspended the use of replay in the mid-1990s because it slowed the game down (and some teams were burned more than others on overturned calls), the league refined the process in the late-90s and led the organized sports world in the implementation and use of replay.

The NBA followed suit 11 years ago.  Even college football, also very rooted in tradition, implemented instant replay in the last of all of its major programs seven years ago. Here we are in 2013, approaching a half-century after man walked on the moon, and baseball is incapable of calling a runner out at first base when a fielder with the ball stepped on the bag first.

SAFE!!!! 1

DON’T POP THE CHAMPAGNE YET

MLB still needs formal approval from 75 percent of the league’s 30 owners in November plus agreement from the umpires and the players association for the video challenge system to go into effect in the 2014 MLB season. I’ve watched MLB bungle enough alley-oops in the past to leave the door open for the possibility that someone tosses a monkey wrench into the gears of change. In addition, we have yet to see tangible evidence of how the replay system will affect actually game play.

Catastrophe aside, baseball has finally moved into the 21^st century. It was just more than a decade after the century started. It should have happened years ago. Bud Selig gets no extra credit for doing what he was supposed to do long before this season.

MLB finally does the fans a favor. Was this the day of Bud Selig's daughter's wedding? 2

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“I DO NOT BELIEVE WHAT I JUST SAW” - Part 2

This is the second in a two part series about the disbelief, good and bad, produced by the 2012 Major League Baseball Playoffs.

DISBELIEF OF DISGUST

The American League Championship Series produced a different kind of disbelief in its first two games. Both occurrences elicited disgust, one for Yankees fans and the other for baseball fans (if not fans of sports) as a whole. The Yankees trailed 4-0 against the Detroit Tigers in the bottom of the ninth inning but rallied to tie the score and force extra innings. After completely taking the momentum away from Detroit, the Yankees would give it back and lose to the Tigers in 12 innings, 6-4. Adding injury to insult, Yankees team captain, shortstop Derek Jeter, broke his ankle during the extra frames and was lost for the postseason.

An opportunity for a great comeback in Major League Baseball history was missed. The Yankees ninth inning rally was a footnote in Game 1 of the 2012 ALCS. The heart and soul of their team was lost to injury. This was nothing compared to the disgust that all fans of baseball should have felt the following day.

Think it can't get any worse? 1

With the score 1-0 in the top of the eighth with two outs, Omar Infante of the Tigers ran from first base to second base following an Austin Jackson single. Infante overran second and slid back to second. Yankees right fielder Nick Swisher threw the ball in to second baseman Robinson Cano, who applied the tag under Infante on his chest. The problem was that second base umpire Jeff Nelson thought Cano completely missed the tag and that Infante went completely over Cano’s glove. Nelson admitted, after the game that he missed the call. Yankees manager Joe Girardi came out to argue the call in a very flared manner and was ejected from the game.  The Tigers would go on to score two runs in an inning that should have been over.

I personally do not blame the umpire. When you look at where Old Blue was positioned and consider the full speed of the play and that Cano missed Infante’s arm when he attempted the tag, the umpire’s call was humanly understandable. What is not understandable is Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s insistence on refusing to expand the instant replay system to one that could have corrected the call, gotten Nelson off of the hook, kept Girardi in the game, and improve the integrity of the outcome of MLB games.

The Tigers’ 3-0 victory in Game 2 (and the fact that the Yankees did not score any runs, making the Tigers’ two runs inconsequential after the fact) became a footnote in the dubious history of bungled calls in the history of postseason baseball caused by the stubborn refusal of a Commissioner longing for a time in sports that ended within the last 20 years in every other major professional North American sport. Yankees fans and any fan of baseball, except for the fans of the Tigers, should have been disgusted and in disbelief that the landscape is such in 2012.

SAFE! 2

The Major League Baseball postseason has produced many moments of disbelief over the years. Disbelief in the form of timeless, memorable moments that can endear people to the game are priceless assets of baseball. Moments like Game 2 of the American League Championship Series should become footnotes by the way of action to correct the problems that they magnify. They should not be the latest in a series of recurring headlines illustrating what’s wrong with the game once unequivocally known as “America’s Pastime”. 

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1) Image from www.usatoday.com

2) Image from www.nydailynews.com

The Best Catch I Never Made

2

Last night, Dewayne Wise of the New York Yankees made one of the more impressive put outs you’ll see. What was even more impressive is that he did it without catching or presenting the ball. What was unimpressive is that a FAN did present the ball to the umpire.

DEWAYNE WISE – BEST ACTOR NOMINEE

Here is what happened. The Yankees led the Cleveland Indians 6-0 in the 7th inning while the Tribe had a runner on third. The Jack Hannahan (.256, 3 HR, 18 RBI) of the Indians hit a fly ball into foul territory in left field. Wise extended his glove near the stands in foul territory and flipped into the crowd. Wise arose with his glove closed and umpire Mike DiMuro called Hannahan out.

Replay showed that it was not a catch. Wise knew he did not have the ball in his glove. Wise put his head down and made a bee line for the dugout with his glove closed, probably hoping that DiMuro would not ask to see the ball. Actually, DiMuro didn’t have to ask. He simply needed to look at the fan near the left field wall holding his new souvenir in the air for all (except DiMuro, apparently) to see.

What a catch...NOT! 1

THE HUMAN ELEMENT

The Indians would go on to lose 6-4. Hannahan would not get a chance to bring the runner on third home and nobody would get a chance to bring Hannahan home, which would have given the Indians an additional two runs because the Yankees were awarded a third out for a catch that Wise never made.

Once again, Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig’s stubborn refusal to join every other major team sports league in the 21st century has impacted the outcome of a game. Fortunately, there are 162 regular season games and the impact of this single mistake should have a limited impact on the outcome of the Indians’ and Yankees’ seasons.

However, we got a glimpse of how Selig’s precious “human element” made a mess of the 2010 Divisional Series matchups. We watched Armondo Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers get robbed of a historic perfect game, ironically against the Indians, due to “the human element” of umpiring during the 2010 regular season. Earlier this month, we watched Johan Santana of the New York Mets earn a no hitter in spite of a Carlos Beltran “foul ball” that landed on the foul line past third base, puffing clouds of white chalk into the air. These are not footnotes in the stories of the respective seasons. These are eye opening plays that altered significant events in baseball.

By all reports I hear in sports media, MLB has lost substantial market share in the 35 years old and under demographic to the NFL and NBA. By refusing to use an easily available tool to ensure that games are called properly, Selig is planting his feet in the mud for a cause that will not attract those younger fans. A commissioner who kicks and screams into the future is not what a game with a shortage of younger fans from a tech savvy generation needs.

American Idol rejects aren't as tone deaf as Bud Selig is to his customers - the fans. 3

CAN’T WE JUST GET RID OF HIM?

Selig recently signed a contract extension, extending his term past the 2012 season, which was originally the final year of Selig’s contract and, according to rumor, supposed to be Selig’s final season before retiring. Clearly that isn’t the case. We’re stuck with him, baseball fans.

So since we can’t give Selig a golden parachute (not to be confused with the golden shower some fans may want to deliver to the commissioner), the only other option is to sit back and watch baseball crush itself under its own weight and continue to erode the integrity of the outcomes of its games. In time, enough black eyes, such as the Dewayne Wise call, will make even the most stubborn mule tired of being hit in the eye.

We haven’t reached the All-Star break yet. There is plenty of time for more umpiring calamities. If we are lucky, perhaps a team could lose a game solely because of a painfully obvious bad call. Perhaps the owners will steamroll Selig and demand an expansion of instant replay before the postseason.

Perhaps I’ll get a date with Megan Fox.

I think most guys reading this have a better chance of getting closer than this to Megan as baseball will of getting closer to expanding instant replay under Bud Selig's watch. 3

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The Daily Hat Trick is sponsored by Sports N Stuff. For great deals on jerseys, shirts, cologne, and other guy stuff, visit http://www.sportsnstuff.biz/.

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The Human Element

Once again, “the human element” has reared its ugly head in Major League Baseball. Last night, the Wild Card race leading Atlanta Braves beat the then-first place Pittsburgh Pirates at home, 4-3, in a 19 inning pitching battle. The game ended when Julio Lugo of the Braves slid home.

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The rest of the world saw Pirates catcher Michael McKenry standing in front of home plate and sweeping a tag on Lugo, five feet from home plate. Home plate umpire Jerry Meals called Lugo “safe” and the game was over. Twitter exploded with commentary about the call immediately, dubbed the “worst call ever” by many fans and media members alike, including the victorious Atlanta Braves' play-by-play radio broadcaster. The call conjured memories of last year, when first base umpire Jim Joyce, by his own admission, incorrectly called Jason Donald of the Cleveland Indians safe with two outs in the ninth inning of what would have otherwise been a perfect game pitched by Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers.

SAFE! 2

Both of these horrific calls could have been quickly corrected by the use of expanded instant replay in Major League Baseball. Bud Selig has fought tooth and nail to restrict the use of replay to helping settle questionable calls involving possible home runs. Selig has frequently said that the “human element” of the game is part of baseball’s appeal.

Really, Mr. Selig? It does not appeal to me. It did not appeal to Joyce or Galarraga, a year ago. It did not appeal to the Pittsburgh Pirates or their fans, last night. And I don’t think the Braves got the warm and fuzzies by having a 19 inning marathon decided in their favor on such a grossly erroneous call. Sure, every athlete wants to win the game, but there is much less satisfaction in victory when the game is handed to you because of a mistake by someone not involved in actually playing the game. I do not see a whole lot of this “human element appeal”.

STEE-RIKE THREE! YOU'RE OUT!! 3

I will continue to make Bud Selig “Public enemy #1” at The Daily Hat Trick until he finally retires, as expected, after next season. Selig is fighting tooth and nail to keep this great game in the 20th century and is often kicking and screaming when any kind of progress in implemented in baseball. He lacks vision. He lacks a connection with fans, especially younger fans. His decisions do not make much sense if his goal is to expand interest in and better market the game of baseball.

Selig could soften my stance on his performance as Commissioner by expanding instant reply. Then again, I doubt he cares what I think, and, fortunately, American sports fans will care much less about what Selig thinks in 15 months.

Winners or losers, Mr. Commissioner? 4

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