Let me begin by saying that I know my opinion means nothing. That said, for my money, Tim McClelland is the best umpire in the major leagues, and Angel Hernandez has proven himself to be the worst. However, obviously MLB thinks otherwise, since Hernandez is also working the ALCS.

Todd Walker hit a ball deep down the right field line tonight that would have hit the foul pole, if not for a Yankee fan who reached around the pole and hit the ball. Hernandez, the RF umpire, called foul. McClelland, the home plate umpire and crew chief, overruled (correctly, in my opinion, on a relatively easy call) and said home run. Joe Torre didn't argue much.

Two points here...first, I don't know what deal with the announcers was...they couldn't tell if it hit the pole or not. The ball dropped straight down from the pole, meaning it hit the fan. If it had hit the pole, it would have caromed off and not dropped directly down. The ball was hit by the fan in the upper deck, by the way.

Second...Security, HELLO??? Why was this guy talking on his cell phone and not kicked out of the game? In every other instance this year when a ball is messed with by a fan like that, they boot the fan...that's why they announce the disclaimer before every game to NOT TOUCH the ball in the field of play. This ought to be something MLB enforces equally in each ballpark.

totally agree, ive always liked mcclelland despite all the complaning about his "late" calls. hernandez is terrible, and was rated as one of the worst MLB umpires...i mean that call wasnt even close, it clearly hit the pole.

He overruled another umpire's call clearly, CLEARLY in violation of 9.02(c).

Everything else is unimportant. BTW, the replays were hardly conclusive.

Rich

im not going to get into the call too much, but i think it might have went foul. it was hooking foul and the guy deflected it back into the pole. i'll just leave it at that, i think hernandez made the right call but i wasnt there and i didnt have a good angle watching TV.

also, mrm21711, where do you find such ratings of umpires? id like to see who ranks where just out of curiosity.

Clearly in violation? I read the rule four times and I can't see how McClelland was "clearly" in violation of a rule. He was the PU. He is well within his rights to do that.

Whatever happened to getting a call correct? There's nothing wrong with discussing a call and fixing a mistake.

McClelland made the correct call IMO. The replay was more than conclusive that the glove was in front of the pole. The ball hit the glove. How Hernandez could miss that is beyond me, but I'm not on the field.

Tim McClelland is quite possibly one of the best umpires in MLB. He always has a consistent zone and a consistent call, even if it's not audible to the television audience. The voice call is for the people within the vicinity of you. The signal is for everyone else. McClelland best exemplifies this.

Again, this is all my opinion and is not meant to be offensive or argumentative to anyone. :)

"Second...Security, HELLO??? Why was this guy talking on his cell phone and not kicked out of the game? In every other instance this year when a ball is messed with by a fan like that, they boot the fan...that's why they announce the disclaimer before every game to NOT TOUCH the ball in the field of play. This ought to be something MLB enforces equally in each ballpark."

Please, this fan was doing what anyone of the 30 or 40 or even 50 thousand fans at that ball park would do. Catch a souvenir from a MLB game. If any stadium or league doesn't want fans to interfer with fair balls , Put up a Fence. It probably would cost what one yankee player gets for one game. A billion dollar industry can spend pennies to prevent something like this???

Sports Illustrated did an anonymous survey this year of MLB players. I don't think they got a 100% response, but the number was very high. C.B. Bucknor was rated as the worst umpire. Hernandez was one of the 5 worst, as voted on by the players. I personally feel Bucknor does a much better job than Hernandez.

Perhaps I'm one of the few true fans of the game anymore. I don't think that "fans" should interfere with the ball in the field of play. Like I said, in all other ballparks, these fans are tossed. Oh well, in the end, the chump may have cost his team a run.

I think it's funny that so many people could've seen the play so differently. From my couch, it looked to me like the ball missed the fan's glove and hit the pole directly behind the glove. I think it really did hit the pole, without interference from the fan. That would also explain why the fan wasn't ejected -- he never touched the ball.

As far as Torre not arguing, another poster has said that the NY Post quoted Torre as saying that the crew chief told him that 3 other umpires agreed with him that the ball was fair. So Torre didn't think the odds were in his favor to argue it. Is that how these things are decided among umpires?

Also, the guy on the cell phone that was interviewed by the Fox announcer was not the guy who tried to catch the ball. The kid who was involved in the play left on his own apparently; his buddy said it was b/c he was being hounded with questions. (Maybe he really was ejected, and his buddy was just covering for him. . .)

I think it hit the fan - if it had hit the pole it would have biunced instead of dropping.

I think if the fan had not touched it it would have hit the pole.

I don't think McClellend was well within his rights UNLESS ASKED by Hernandez.

Have you ever felt a foul pole? The one in Arlington is not metal on the outside - it's more like the bottom of a field goal - thick foam on the outside. I would expect a ball hitting that to behave in much the same way as the ball in question did. Looked like it hit the foul pole without hitting the fan to me. The padding is what made it drop nearly straight down.

PS - the friend of the fan who supposedly hit the ball could not have seen the ball hit either glove or pole - he was on the wrong side of the pole to see it. Next time you see the replay, watch for him.

i saw the replay again, and im taking back my original statement. i thought it hit the fan and would have went foul, now seeing the play again i think it would have hit the pole then deflected into foul territory and be a homerun.

im glad this call wasnt mine to make in the first place, because as you can see it took me over 12 hours to get the call corrected.

Hey mbcrowder, I've seen the pole at Yankee Stadium, I've touched the pole at Yankee Stadium, I'm a friend of the pole at Yankee Stadium and let me tell you, the pole at Arlington is no Yankee Stadium pole :p (sorry, couldn't resist!)

Anyway, when a struck ball hits that particular pole it carroms off. It was obvious from replays the fan touched the ball just before the ball was going to hit the pole. A great job by the umps. And I too was wondering just where was Yankee Stadium security.

One other thing that I have been wondering about: when did the foul ball mechanic go from raising both hands in the air to pointing? I've noticed that very few guys now use the 2 hands up mechanic, they go right to the point either fair or foul. On that call Hernandez looked more like a basketball ref than an umpire, and to then get over ruled after selling it with his big call made him look awful. Is this changed or are they using...GASP... "unauthorized" mechanics?

As soon as I saw Angel Hernandez was doing this series I knew there would be problems. McClelland is a fantastic umpire, but whatever possesed the MLB to put a guy like Hernandez on the ALCS is beyond me. Forget about giving the guy a turn, he doesn't deserve one. Hopefully this is the only issue involving him in the series. He's got the dish for game 2 so we'll see how he holds up.

9.02(c)

<i>If a decision is appealed, the umpire making the decision may ask another umpire for information before making a final decision. <b>No umpire shall criticize, seek to reverse or interfere with another umpire's decision unless asked to do so by the umpire making it.</b></i>

Does that make it any clearer?

It does not matter that he was the plate umpire. Nothing in the rule book gives the plate umpire the right to overturn a call.

Additionally, there was no indication that Hernandez asked for help.

All that said, this is further evidence that the rumors that Sandy Alderson has instructed umpires to get together and get the call "right" at the expense of 9.02(c) are correct.

In the short term it appears to be working. I fear, however, for the long term.

With regards to 9.02(c)"If a decision is appealed, ..." Did McClelland not change the call before it had a chance to be appealed by the Red Sox manager? Thus McCelland didn't violate this rule.

Btw - McClelland was not only the plate umpire but also crew chief? Doesn't that add any weight to his ability to change the call like he did?