The courageous call is the one Joyce made. It was so obviously wrong that Joyce, a major league umpire since 1989, clearly had no desire to help Galarraga make history. He simply called the play as he saw it. The problem, of course, is that Joyce’s decision is easily the most egregious blown call in baseball over the last 25 years.There's mistaken, there's stone cold wrong, and there's this. Bad calls are part of baseball, but this is going into the Bad Call Hall of Fame.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
An existence proof that there is bad PR
Here's what will get printed in this guy's obituary:
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5 comments:
Bad, and not really fixable. Think Buckner. This one will be played over and over on sports shows until global warming kills us all.
And the funny thing is, if an umpire is trained correctly, he shouldn't even be looking at the first baseman's mitt, but at the runner's feet. The umpire watches the runner's feet, and listens for the ball hitting the mitt, and makes the call according to which happens first. I guess that, trying too hard to get it right, that he got it wrong.
*suspicious thought* Joyce isn't from Arizona, is he?
Bob has it right. I watched this with my son, who is a hard core baseball player and fan. He said the call was wrong the first time he saw it, at full speed.
Joyce blew the call, but bad officiating is part of the sport. What should have happened right away is that the umps convened to discuss what they each saw. That way, Joyce could have reconsidered and changed his call without looking bad. Sadly, they didn't do that and Jim Leyland didn't argue nearly enough. For him not to get tossed over this meant he wasn't arguing hard enough.
All of that being said, I don't think that there should be instant replay in baseball. Actually, I'd be happy if they got rid of it in all sports.
As a former 1st baseman (little league through high school) I can't begin to tell you how many bad calls happen at 1st base.
The baseman knows, always. He can feel both the ball and the runner hit the base in real time. No visual depth perception issues, no diverted attention, no speed of sound lag.
As one who also umpired for my sis' softball leagues, the judgment calls are just that. You see what you see and make the call. You can't do any more than that.
Nature of the game has some human fallibility to it.
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