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The headline for this blog was infamously uttered by Casey Stengel, abck in the bad old days when he, and the chance of seeing something truly horrific, were the ONLY reasons to watch the Mets play baseball. (Avoid temptation to kick the current Mets' regime when they are down and out here!)
Sadly, in the era of replay, it might as well apply here, too, to the state of officiating in at least 2 professional sports, and quite possibly all of them. Football fans are still wondering when and how football lost its rudder to the point where, on the opening weekend of the season, a game winning touchdown which players and fans alike knew to be a touchdown, turned out not to be -- not because of the ineptitude of officials, but because of the foolish inconsistency of the rules and their definitions, which, in the era of replay, have needed to be recalibrated beyond what is real or measurable on the field at real speed. Case in point -- the critical play in the 4th quarter this past Sunday of an otherwise forgetable game (except to long-suffering Raiders' fans) between Oakland and San Diego. I have watched the super - slo replay multiple times -- and have NO idea whether Philip Rivers' arm was moving forward with the ball at the point of contact which knocked it loose or not! Anyone who tells you they saw it clearly is lying! But, it HAD to be called one way or the other on the field in real time -- even less chance THAT call was anything more than a guess. BUT, the direction in which THAT guess was made determined the outcome, because the replay would be unable to overrule such a close call!! THAT is the element of replay in football that no one seems to be grasping!
Ironically, on a day dangerously close to Bud Selig's own self-inflicted nightmares last Saturday, the ONLY person who got this point, or any others relating to close plays and replay right, was the now retired Bobby Cox, career leader in being thrown out of games! IN EACH of 3 PLAYOFF games, a critical late game run scored after a questionable or blown call. In the Yankee's win, it was a clearly blown strike call by Hunter (father Harry is rolling in his grave) Wendlestadt that kept a Lance Berkman at-bat alive for him to drive in a critical run, and led to the too-quick ejection of Ron Gardenhire by Wendlestadt, after the umpire interjected himself into Gardenhire's attempt to calm his pitcher and team.
In Texas's win, an apparent failed check swing strike 3 by Michael Young was not corrected by the first base (h)ump, allowing Young to hit the crushing 3 run homer on the next pitch, and again leading to a managerial ejection, when Joe Maddon, properly, started barking at the first base umpire from the mound, and then was being escorted away while talking to the home palte umpire, who ejected him, also seemingly too quickly.
To my untrained eye, both calls were wrong. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. I didn't watch the whole Yankee's game to know how inconsistent Wendlestadt's strike zone had been all game (but I can guess from experience!). Young's check swing really was borderline. Neither would have mattered if the results of the next pitches had been different -- although Berkman hit an absurdly good pitch that he had no right hitting anyway, so don't blame the hit on a mental lapse by the pitcher there -- and the pitchers had been able to do what they are supposed to do.
Ironically, the most obviously wrong call, and the only one NOT to lead to a managerial ejection, came as the Braves lost to San Francisco. Buster Posey was clearly tagged out trying to steal second base, which would have ended the 8th inning. Instead, he was called safe, and scored what turned out to be the winning run one batter later.
When asked why he didn't protest the call, Cox responded that he couldn't see from the dugout, and the reaction of his players on the field did not lead him to think the call was wrong. When further asked about expanding replay, Cox expressed his reservations for both the integrity and the delay of the game!
Even more frightening, In SUnday's Phillies' victory, Chase Utley scored the go ahead run after not one, but THREE blown calls. He took first after NOT being hit by a pitched ball, was called safe at second on a close force out which replay showed was wrong, and probably, although not conclusively, failed to touch third base while scoring on an error by Jay Bruce. The ineptitude of the Reds' defense clearly overshadowed that of the umpires. But did not make it go away.
Indeed, it has gotten so bad, that the leaders of the Players' Association asked for, and have received, a hearing, to discuss the vastly increased number of complaints coming from players about both blown calls, and aggressive attitudes on the part of too many umpires! Maybe THIS will lead to positive improvements -- but I am not holding my breath.
Especially after watching the end of the Capitals' home opener against the formerly respected and classy New Jersey Devils, when new Devils' coach John McLean either couldn't stop, or deliberately sent out, a series of goons with the game out of reach, leading to three successive fighting delays in 6 seconds of play time, all started by Devils' players -- with no pre-emptive action taken by the refs, who sttod watching helplessly, until a 4th attack several seconds later was blatantly one sided!
And hey, the NBA, with their own ref dramas, is about to start -- anyone yet believe Donaghy was the only one with a gambling problem??
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
Oh, What A Summer
It was Fathers' Day, several years ago. My family and I were travelling to RFK STadium here in DC for the baseball game that day between our hometown team and the visiting New York Yankees. For me, it was a delayed dream, a long time in the making, come true. For even though I had grown up in New York, on Long Island, as a Mets fan, what had happened to the American League franchise in our nation's capital 30 years earlier was a crime I long waited to see undone.
I had even gone so far, back in the 80's, on my first trip to Cooperstown, to purchase a Washington Senators sweatshirt, that became a staple of my fall and spring wardrobe. Long after any true grown up should have thrown what was left of that old sweatshirt away, I refused, on principle, to do so, at least until the injustice was undone, and I could buy a shirt for the NEW Washington baseball club.
That chance should have come the preceding July 4th. However, my recovery from quadruple bypass surgery had me lying at home, watching on television as my wife, kids, and a family friend got to attend the game between our new home team and my beloved Mets. So the following Fathers' Day was an even bigger deal for us!
On the Metro on the way to the game, I patiently explained 2 truths that were already clear. First, although our Nationals were, technically, the home team, the likelihood was that we would be outnumbered by Yankee fans. And while my only in person experience of the World Series had been at Yankee Stadium during the 1999 series, and had taught me that not ALL Yankees' fans are loud and obnoxious, the odds were pretty good that there would be at least one unhappy interaction upcoming that day with some rude visitor to our fair city.
The second truth grew from the first. Whatever they heard around them, I explained, we would be role models. I did NOT tell them they could not boo the visiting team. I DID, however, make very clear that there were 3 visiting players who they could not boo, no matter what, because they were just too good. It was a lesson I had learned in my youth at Shea Stadium, when my father, a converted Yankee fan, would go out of his way to take me to games against the Giants, so he could cheer Willie Mays on his return "home," as well as the incomparable Willie McCovey. Those three Yankee players whose ability and performance had earned them this right were Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and (still at that time before the admissions of steroid involvement) Alex Rodriguez (who, ironically, at that moment, was struggling through a slump that had most Yankee fans booing him!).
That game made it onto the commemorative t-shirts given out at the close of RFK after the next season, for that was the game which ended with a memorable walk off home run by Ryan Zimmerman, a single swing which reduced 25,000 rowdy, obnoxious Yankees' fans to stunned silence.
And it was the first of now 4 capacity crowds I have been a part of at Nationals' games over the years. There was also that last game at RFK, when the game on the field mattered not in the least, we were all there to celebrate history. There was opening day this season -- that embarrassing debacle in which the Lerner's were so desperate for a sellout, that they sold blocs of tickets to Philadelphia bus companies and tour companies who turned it into a Phillies' home game.
And there was that game this summer between the Mets and Nats. Two struggling underachieving franchises -- just another of the many games that make up a season. Yet, the stands were full -- all because of one player -- the phenom pitcher! And, for the first time, the capacity crowd was actually watching the game, and rooting for the home team -- sort of.
They were rooting for the kid -- and they had picked the wrong day. For this was the day of the first hint that all was not right. He struggled with his control in the first inning, left the game early having given up several runs, facing a loss. I had another commitment I had to make, so I was leaving after the 6th inning, no matter what. But with Strasburg's early departure, the bulk of the crowd left with me.
And they, and I, missed the ridiculous ending, as the Mets gave notice that they would not be a serious player the rest of the way, squandering the lead in the 9th inning. It would have been nice to be able to report that the crowd that remained was appropriately raucous in their admiration for the grit of the comeback. But I don't know -- I was on the Metro! With too many other locals for me to be comfortable making the above statement!
And it wasn't long after that day that the Strasburg story turned tragic, and with it, all the excitement was sucked out of the Nationals for the rest of the season. Now we wait, and pray that the comparisons to JR Richard and Mark Fidrych do not turn painfully tragic as well.
It was that kind of summer in sports -- filled with the expected and the unexpected; the joyous and the painful. More reflections to come -- and not just from me.
I had even gone so far, back in the 80's, on my first trip to Cooperstown, to purchase a Washington Senators sweatshirt, that became a staple of my fall and spring wardrobe. Long after any true grown up should have thrown what was left of that old sweatshirt away, I refused, on principle, to do so, at least until the injustice was undone, and I could buy a shirt for the NEW Washington baseball club.
That chance should have come the preceding July 4th. However, my recovery from quadruple bypass surgery had me lying at home, watching on television as my wife, kids, and a family friend got to attend the game between our new home team and my beloved Mets. So the following Fathers' Day was an even bigger deal for us!
On the Metro on the way to the game, I patiently explained 2 truths that were already clear. First, although our Nationals were, technically, the home team, the likelihood was that we would be outnumbered by Yankee fans. And while my only in person experience of the World Series had been at Yankee Stadium during the 1999 series, and had taught me that not ALL Yankees' fans are loud and obnoxious, the odds were pretty good that there would be at least one unhappy interaction upcoming that day with some rude visitor to our fair city.
The second truth grew from the first. Whatever they heard around them, I explained, we would be role models. I did NOT tell them they could not boo the visiting team. I DID, however, make very clear that there were 3 visiting players who they could not boo, no matter what, because they were just too good. It was a lesson I had learned in my youth at Shea Stadium, when my father, a converted Yankee fan, would go out of his way to take me to games against the Giants, so he could cheer Willie Mays on his return "home," as well as the incomparable Willie McCovey. Those three Yankee players whose ability and performance had earned them this right were Derek Jeter, Mariano Rivera, and (still at that time before the admissions of steroid involvement) Alex Rodriguez (who, ironically, at that moment, was struggling through a slump that had most Yankee fans booing him!).
That game made it onto the commemorative t-shirts given out at the close of RFK after the next season, for that was the game which ended with a memorable walk off home run by Ryan Zimmerman, a single swing which reduced 25,000 rowdy, obnoxious Yankees' fans to stunned silence.
And it was the first of now 4 capacity crowds I have been a part of at Nationals' games over the years. There was also that last game at RFK, when the game on the field mattered not in the least, we were all there to celebrate history. There was opening day this season -- that embarrassing debacle in which the Lerner's were so desperate for a sellout, that they sold blocs of tickets to Philadelphia bus companies and tour companies who turned it into a Phillies' home game.
And there was that game this summer between the Mets and Nats. Two struggling underachieving franchises -- just another of the many games that make up a season. Yet, the stands were full -- all because of one player -- the phenom pitcher! And, for the first time, the capacity crowd was actually watching the game, and rooting for the home team -- sort of.
They were rooting for the kid -- and they had picked the wrong day. For this was the day of the first hint that all was not right. He struggled with his control in the first inning, left the game early having given up several runs, facing a loss. I had another commitment I had to make, so I was leaving after the 6th inning, no matter what. But with Strasburg's early departure, the bulk of the crowd left with me.
And they, and I, missed the ridiculous ending, as the Mets gave notice that they would not be a serious player the rest of the way, squandering the lead in the 9th inning. It would have been nice to be able to report that the crowd that remained was appropriately raucous in their admiration for the grit of the comeback. But I don't know -- I was on the Metro! With too many other locals for me to be comfortable making the above statement!
And it wasn't long after that day that the Strasburg story turned tragic, and with it, all the excitement was sucked out of the Nationals for the rest of the season. Now we wait, and pray that the comparisons to JR Richard and Mark Fidrych do not turn painfully tragic as well.
It was that kind of summer in sports -- filled with the expected and the unexpected; the joyous and the painful. More reflections to come -- and not just from me.
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