Quote:
Originally Posted by UES
Close enough to a jump turn for me - especially in LIVE speed. I think you're over analyzing it even though you may be "technically" correct. Let me put it to you this way...
Option #1: Award the runner second (pretty much what everyone is expecting) and continue the game with no further incident.
Option #2: Be a "hero", pull a 2 base award out of your a$$, point the runner, who has already stopped at second, over to third, try explaining to an irate manager that the pitcher became an infielder blah, blah, blah, huddle up with the rest of your crew who, like everyone else, is wondering what the hell you just called, and then watch yourself on the highlights 1000 times over the next day or so trying to defend a call that only you and maybe a few other internet umpires about how great of a call it was.
No thanks, I'll take option #1 Yeah, go ahead, call me a wuss and tell me I have no balls...I'd rather take a little crap from a couple of people than get dragged through the mud by everyone else in the world. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, then call it a duck.
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Wuss.
Seriously, that's not a jump turn, IMO. Both feet didn't go airborne simultaneously as he turned. He clearly disengaged and stepped back with his pivot foot first before his free foot became airborne. If he had executed this move to feint the runner back to first, you might catch heck if you balked him.
Perhaps in real time, it looked more like a jump turn than not. But the slo-mo replay is convincing enough, to me anyway, that this should have been a two-base award.