Felt like working some ball last night, so I went out and worked the bases in a fall-league quarter-final of a one-game elimination playoff.
I'm innocently standing off F4's shoulder with a runner on 1B and one out in the bottom half of the sixth.
Since this was a SP game, the only thing I have to do prior to the ball being put into play is watch the runner on 1B. Well, sure enough as the pitcher stepped onto the pitcher's plate and gets set to pitch, the runner steps back off of the base. I'm damn near in shock that this is happening to me twice in the same season.
As the pitcher begins to pitch, the runner is still off the base by about 2' and being as anal as I am, I kill the play and call no pitch. That's just about the time the ball went flying over my head into the RC gap.
Of course, all the standard lines came to surface. "How can you make a call like that?", "Nobody calls that in a playoff game?", "How can you make that call in a game of this importance", etc.
Thank God that team came back from a deficit to win the game in the bottom of the 7th. If not, I'm sure the loss would have been my fault. Forget the 7 infield errors and the 4 dropped balls (and I mean dropped, not missed) in the outfield. And did I happen to mention the walks given up(approx. 8-9) and the more than 20 illegal pitches called on that team's pitcher?
BTW, even after the game was won, they continued to argue the call
You just gotta love this game!