[JRutledge]

Originally Posted by Dakota

This post is a bit of a rant, so ignore it if you like.

There are issues with this that MLB and the umpire's union needs to address (IMO).

First, with a call this obviously poor (not just missed... poor - the ball was fair for two easily seen reasons: it hit the players glove in fair territory, and it hit the ground in fair territory) in a playoff game, there needs to be some repercussions for the umpire. A call this bad is poor in general, and in a playoff game, unacceptable.

Second, with the obvious conflict of interest for MLB (they clearly make more money if the Yankees advance than if the Twins advance), there needs to be transparency in how the umpire is disciplined. With a call this poor, there will be (and is) the chatter that it was favoritism.

Third, there needs to be transparency in how umpires are selected for the playoffs, for the same reason as #2, and it needs to be merit-based. Cuzzi has somewhat of a history of poor calls that favor the Yankees. Why was he assigned to this series?

MLB cannot afford to appear to be tolerating incompetent umpires in the playoffs neither can they afford the appearance of impropriety in the officiating.

The pretend commissioner is no help. In responding to the call for instant replay for calls of this kind that resulted from the poor call, he mumbled something about baseball cannot tolerate the delay. With the generally slow pace of MLB, this is obviously baloney. Further, his credibility as a man of integrity is, well, laughable. There are real and good reasons why IR for this kind of call is a bad idea (e.g. play stops with the FOUL call; you can't recreate the continuing action that would have happened, etc.), but for a man of seedy reputation to make such an obviously silly reason for no IR just adds fuel to the speculation that something is amiss.

It is one thing to say there needs to be an open process on who gets the playoffs, it is quite another to call the umpire bias. For one if you claim there is not transparency, how in the hell do you know what calls any umpire has made or not made against a particular team? I think at the very least the umpire just saw something else and made a call. Baseball is not a sport where you get many opportunities in this situation to screw a team even if you wanted to. And I doubt this umpire would jeopardize his career to help out a team that beat a team that was expected to lose from jump.

Give me a damn break.

Peace