|
Despite what people may think, that play was NOT your ordinary time play that we are accustome to seeing. With two outs and a ground ball in the infield, 99 % of the time, will get thrown to the nearest FORCE play base, usually 1st base. When is the last time you ever had a time play occur on a batted ball that DOESN'T leave the infield? Not to mention that it was a bizarre tag play where a runner unexpectedly hurdles the fielder who barely gets the tag on him for the third out.
Whether you're Alan Porter or Tim McClelland, I can totally understand why a plate umpire might not line up this type of play, MLB or little league. My guess is that Porter was totally caught off guard and because he was not sure, he decided to not score the run. Now, his crew chief joins the discussion and he's thinking....well, if the Manager is that adament that his runner touched the plate before the tag and the plate guy has no clue, then as the crew chief, maybe I'll take my chances and just say that I saw the tag occur after the runner crossed and reverse the call. Obviously, he took a gamble and it ended up blowing up into a worse situation.
While I understand why Winters stepped in and I do think his intentions were good, but I think he got fooled into making a "blind" call which turned out to be even worse than Porter's "no call". Sh!t happens guys, even to MLB Umpires and sometimes you just have to learn from the mistake(s) and move on.
|