Quote:
Originally Posted by RichMSN
Potentially spectacular? Making this call is the equivalent of saying that a piece of thread did not touch the needle as it passed through the eye.
Maybe I am just too old school (I never thought I'd say that), but to me, this is, without a doubt, picking up the poop-covered end of the stick for no good reason. There's one thing to have courage to make the right call, but when the ball beats the runner by *this much*, the call had better be 100% defensibly right. In other words, the question that needs to be asked here is: Prove to me he missed the tag. I agree with the announcers (another first) -- unless there's clear daylight, I'm calling the runner out.
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I compare this play to a play Davey Phillips had at the plate during the 1987 World Series at Minnesota. According to Phillips' autobiography, he had a play at the plate in Minnesota. Minnesota was on offense. The Minnesota runner came in and the throw beat him to the plate by a mile (like last night). Phillips called him out. There was no argument from the runner, any coaches or the manager. About a minute later (during the commercial break) the whole stadium starts booing. Apparently, the replay showed that the runner's foot touched the plate a second or two ahead of the actual tag. As Phillips wrote (and I paraphrase), if I had called him "safe" I would have had to eject half the St. Louis dugout. As it was, he didn't hear a peep at anytime from anyone about the call (other than the fans' booing).
Now the umpires have no safety valve. If Meals'
had gone old school and called him "out" because the ball beat the runner by a mile,
but the tag was actually missed by an inch or two...then it would have be called "the worst call ever," or "a horrible way to end a classic game." So now, because of HD replays he (umpires) have to ignore what worked so well for 100+ years and try to determine if F2 actually did just nick the runner with the tag, or if F2 did, in fact, just barely miss the tag.
I'm am convinced from my conversations with various persons that a majority of MLB umpires would vote FOR instant replay. They are just opposed to a college football system where someone in the booth who is not a part of the crew overrules them. They want to be able to correct their own mistakes (more like the NFL replay system). Call it a pride thing.