Lightening Almost Strikes Twice in Texas.

[Mark Land]

There must be something in the water. This week, there was almost another “changed” call at a University of Texas game. The game was against No. 1 Rice. The crew: Home: Steve Emerson 1st: Randy Christal 3rd: Jerry Goolsby

The play: Texas’ fastest player at plate. Strike 3 squirts away from catcher and heads toward the 1st base dugout. Batter gets poor jump, but takes off. F2 gives chase. U1 moves to foul ground (2nd base line extended) about 5 feet from the bag. F2 picks up ball, fires to F3. Throw is a little off line. U1 bangs out the runner on a VERY close play. As the defense sets for next batter, who is stepping in the box. Texas’ 1st base coach gets U1’s attention and complains to U1 that F3 came off the bag (which would have been directly toward U1).

U1, without hesitation, yells to PU, “Steve, did he pull his foot?”
PU: “Huh?
U1: “Did the throw pull him off the bag?”
PU: “No, he was on.”

No one seemed to notice the exchange. The Texas coach seemed happy U1 checked. I am sure I am the only one in the stadium bothered by what happened. I refrained from heckling.

For what it is worth, I cannot help but be an armchair umpire when I go to games. I realize these guys have a thousand times the experience I have and are excellent umpires. I watch them to learn. In this case, I did not think either base ump had a good game. In addition to the play I described above, there were four noteworthy plays.

1. U1 missed an easy obstruction call when the batter runner rounded first on an extra base hit to left center filed. F3 clearly got B/R’s way as they “juke” each other a couple of times. U1 was heading to cover second and never saw it. The runner went have way to 3rd before retreating to second.

2. U1 seemed to have trouble getting an angle on plays at 1st. He always went into foul ground to make calls and was often closer to 180 than to 90 degrees.

3. U3 failed to call interference on a pop up slide at 2nd during an attempted double play. A Rice assistant went berserk, pushing through U1 to get to U3. I was VERY surprised U3 did not eject him. The assistant told me after the game, “I guess he knew he blew it because he did not chase me.”

4. PU called batter interference when the batter stumbled into F2 during a throw on a steal of 2nd. (I agreed with the call, not that anyone asked.) That is the 3rd time this year batter’s interference has been called at UT games. All three were by different umpires. I have not seen that call three times in the last 21 years I have been watching UT baseball.

Like I said, there must be something in the water.

Mark
[email protected]

[Carl Childress]

Originally posted by Mark Land
There must be something in the water. This week, there was almost another “changed” call at a University of Texas game. The game was against No. 1 Rice. The crew: Home: Steve Emerson 1st: Randy Christal 3rd: Jerry Goolsby

The play: Texas’ fastest player at plate. Strike 3 squirts away from catcher and heads toward the 1st base dugout. Batter gets poor jump, but takes off. F2 gives chase. U1 moves to foul ground (2nd base line extended) about 5 feet from the bag. F2 picks up ball, fires to F3. Throw is a little off line. U1 bangs out the runner on a VERY close play. As the defense sets for next batter, who is stepping in the box. Texas’ 1st base coach gets U1’s attention and complains to U1 that F3 came off the bag (which would have been directly toward U1).

U1, without hesitation, yells to PU, “Steve, did he pull his foot?”
PU: “Huh?
U1: “Did the throw pull him off the bag?”
PU: “No, he was on.”

Of course, Randy has done about 10,000 CWS games and is considered one of the NCAA's premiere umpires. Naturally, he was having a bad hair day. What he did -- asking after he made the call -- is clearly against the rules.

No one seemed to notice the exchange. The Texas coach seemed happy U1 checked. I am sure I am the only one in the stadium bothered by what happened. I refrained from heckling.

1. U1 missed an easy obstruction call when the batter runner rounded first on an extra base hit to left center filed. F3 clearly got B/R’s way as they “juke” each other a couple of times. U1 was heading to cover second and never saw it. The runner went have way to 3rd before retreating to second.

This is just horrible mechanics. If it was an extra-base hit, why wasn't U3 covering second? You are implying he went out when it wasn't necessary. Routine PRO mechanics: On any clear base hit, U3 covers second in a three-man crew. It's "regular rotation," as they say.

2. U1 seemed to have trouble getting an angle on plays at 1st. He always went into foul ground to make calls and was often closer to 180 than to 90 degrees.

Foul ground is probably best in a three-man crew since there's less likelihood of getting in the way of the second baseman going left or the first baseman taking a play unassisted. I know many umpires who prefer it, even in a four-man crew. That's mostly a matter of personal preference.

3. U3 failed to call interference on a pop up slide at 2nd during an attempted double play. A Rice assistant went berserk, pushing through U1 to get to U3. I was VERY surprised U3 did not eject him. The assistant told me after the game, “I guess he knew he blew it because he did not chase me.”

Nobody's perfect.

4. PU called batter interference when the batter stumbled into F2 during a throw on a steal of 2nd. (I agreed with the call, not that anyone asked.) That is the 3rd time this year batter’s interference has been called at UT games. All three were by different umpires. I have not seen that call three times in the last 21 years I have been watching UT baseball.

I'm glad they got one tough call right, anyway.

[JJ]

Maybe on the "after the fact" foot pull the first base umpire only asked the plate guy about the foot pull to humor the complaining coach, knowing the plate ump would agree with his call because it was "after the fact". Maybe. As to the rest of the problems - let's hope the crew had an intensive post-game and will avoid future problems (that should be avoided).

[Tim C]

Soooo, what a screw-up the crew was . . . maybe we should just have you work the games from now on.

Pretty easy to Monday morning Quarterback Mark . . . I doubt seriously if a D1 crew made all the errors you have described in one game.

Gimme a break.

And Mark, assistant coaches don't argue in D1, in fact they don't talk. They don't exist!



[Edited by Tim C on Mar 16th, 2001 at 09:48 AM]

[Mark Land]

Tim C:

It has been a long time that someone has called me a liar. I refuse to engage in flame wars, but I will defend myself.

My initial post confessed I was being an “armchair umpire.” You can criticize me for that all you want. The only reason I made my post was because I felt it ironic that two weeks after the initial “changed call at Texas,” that an entirely new crew would have the same issue arise. I was the one that initially reported the first instance too. (BTW, since you doubt my veracity, Jon Bible confirmed that one.)

Am I being overly critical of a crew of obviously excellent umpires? Perhaps. The fact that I recognize mistakes (or at least things I believe to be mistakes) does not diminish my respect for them.

The only member of that crew that I am familiar with is Randy Christal. I freely acknowledge he is one of the finest Division I umpires out there. I have watched him call games for over 15 years. Christal has called games in 8 College World Series, was a replacement umpire during the previous strike by the MLB umpires, has called 100’s of games at UT. He is also a distinguished football official. He was the referee in a NCAA national championship game and in the Rose Bowl. His latest claim to fame is that he is a referee in the XFL. (Don’t give up your day job Randy.) I consider myself a fan. The only thing I have against Randy is that he erroneously called Spike Owen out at 3rd to keep Texas out of the championship game of the 1982 College World Series. I do not hold a grudge.

I do not know the other umpires. I believe they were a WAC crew selected by Rice. I thought Emerson had a very good game behind the plate. Perhaps I should have said so in my initial post. I guess I fell prey to the fact that “good news is no news.”

As to the accuracy of the rest of my post, check your facts before calling me a liar. I am sure Randy would agree with the accuracy of my tale, excluding the obstruction that he did not see. He might disagree that he “erred” or might explain why he acted as he did. I would enjoy that conversation. I am sure I would learn something.

I have not, learned anything, however, from defending myself against your ludicrous allegation. Had I not already typed this, I would not bother.

Mark
[email protected]

[Tim C]

Well, Mr Sensitive . . . grab your balls (bag) and try to follow along.

I'll use small words so you can keep up.

I don't see liar in my post.

You thought you saw all these here things . . . I doubt they happened as you said . . . you want me to accept your view with no question.

Go work a good small ball game THEN figure out that what you saw (and confirmed with the offended coach - now that's an authority) is probably not exactly what happened.

This site doesn't allow flaming . . . so I don't flame . . . I j u s t t a l k r e a l s l o w f o r s o m e o f o u r 's l o w' f o l k s.

[Mark Land]

Tim C:

I fail to see the point of your post. I was there; you were not.

I heard the exchange on the "Did he pull his foot?" play. I clearly saw the other plays.

If you have a question about one of the plays, ask it. Otherwise saying, "I doubt they happened as you said" serves no useful purpose. Neither does your sarcasm.

Mark
[email protected]

[senior]

For someone who says they enjoy Carl's humor, you better be careful, or you'll be "Longhorned" by Carl himself.
Actually, as an innocent by-stander, I fail to see any reason for hostility in reading Mark's post. I suggest you work a couple of double-headers by yourself, so you're more relaxed when reading this stuff.
Soon we'll all be too busy working games to indulge in this petty type of nit-picking.
JMHO