Everybody is Coming Up Short This Summer
Baseball umpires are ejecting people like crazy. There have been 15 ejections in the past 5 days. A majority of these are coming because of the poor calls umpires are making, themselves. Although this may be a little excessive, the baseball officiating system is still about as terrible as it ever was.
People like the human element of baseball. It’s why so many people fight technology when the issue gets brought up. Of course it sucks when a strike zone is all over the place. I want to blow my brains out when a game ends on a looking strike out because it was clearly a ball and the umpire was just trying to wrap things up. They get lazy. They’re human.
It still is a lot of fun to include them, though. I’d like to think there are an equal amount of bad calls for ‘safe’ as there are ‘out.’
The problem lies when the umpires start getting a little too testy or lazy. Cameron Maybin was put on base after a 3-ball walk that everyone in the entire stadium messed up on. The scoreboard was wrong. The ump was wrong. The players missed it. The coaches missed it. How did 30,000 people miss this? There was probably some poor old man in the stands who was wretchedly shifting in his seat, mumbling under his breath, AND he noticed it. “Kids these days….”
Two nights ago during the Phils/Marlins game, Domonic Brown was called safe on a play at the plate. After some instant replay, it was obvious his foot bounced perfectly over the plate and never touched it. He should have been called out, technically. 80-year-old Jack McKeon was ejected that game for fighting with the umpires, but he was right. The running theme seems to be that old people possess super human-like intelligence and should never be called wrong. Age should be the deciding factor in all arguments.
My only defense for that particular matter is this : the infield-fly rule. What I mean by that is the decision umpires will make in regards to what they believe to be a “catchable” ball. It gets ruled an out regardless of what transpires afterwards. This is based on intentions and circumstances. Now I say this because even though Domonic Brown’s foot technically skimmed over home plate and never touched it, he still had John Buck beat at the plate and was going to score. He should have made that slide and been safe, just as a hit can be ruled an error. You judge circumstances.
Don’t buy that? Well… neither do I… but still…
I’m just trying to come up with an argument as to why we shouldn’t have instant replay. There is going to be an onslaught of ‘replay’ talks this week. Get ready for ’em.
Another cliche category that is going to get some coverage this week is our lovely friend, steroids. Albert Pujols recovered from an injury that was diagnosed to take 6-8 weeks in around 2. That, combined with the fact that Mark McGwire is his hitting coach, has a lot of people speculating over the special kind of HGH he’s taking.
I know what it’s called. Stem cells. Some incredible doctor injected a batch of awesome into his arm, and BAM, just like that, he’s back to putting up big numbers for his contract year. Stem cells don’t show up on a drug test right?
Since we’re on the subject of coming up short, Roy Williams proposed to his super-hot, beauty-pageant winning girlfriend and she turned him down. Now he’s trying to sue her for the $76k ring she kept. Why wouldn’t she give the ring back right then and there you ask? Well, because the proposal was through a video recording he mailed to her on Valentine’s Day. Fuck, that’s sad.
Alright, that’s it for today folks.
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