Tim McClelland misses a safe call while on 3rd.

Womack is caught in a pickle and is tagged by an empty glove. Ball in hand.

How do 4 umps miss this one? It cost the Yanks a run.

[Edited by JugglingReferee on Jul 4th, 2005 at 02:36 PM]

I'm usually willing to give the MLB umpires the benefit of the doubt on most calls. This one I don't understand though. The 2nd and 3rd base umpires were both looking at the play and the home plate umpire has nothing to do but watch the play.

They just flat out missed that one.

Guess you guys havent kicked any calls lately ? It happens to all of us. The big leaguers just have a permanent record of their missed calls via videotape. Seriously, before you rag on these guys ,look in the mirror.

Lawrence

Hey, Lawerence, I'm not ragging on them. I usually give them the benefit of the doubt. But they flat out missed a call that should not have been missed by experienced Major League umpires. The ball that was in the other hand wasn't even close to the body, it was hanging out there for all to see.

But hey, it happens. I'm not killing them for it. If Womack is not leaning toward third and breaking before the pitcher commits, the tag play isn't even an issue.

I'm just surprise the missed what should have been an easy and obvious call. And if was in a similar situation and missed the same call, all that has been said would apply to me as well.

<i> Originally posted by JugglingReferee </i>


<b> How do 4 umps miss this one? It cost the Yanks a run. </b>

Because they are HUMAN. Whether you have 1 or 6 umpires calls will be missed.

The PROBLEM

Even us amateurs make a "gazillion" calls a year and the ones we miss are magnified.

In the PROS, the Networks show the play OVER/OVER and Over again in super slow mo. Most of the times the umpires are prooved correct, but when they are not it is MAGNIFIED.

The Final Score I believe was 13 to 8. Did the umpires give up all those runs. I do not think McClelland was pitching or did I miss that in the box scores.

Pete Booth

...and a HUGE picture of the tag (ball in right hand, tag with glove only) on the baseball page of the July 5 edition of USA Today.

along these lines, I tuned into a ESPN game-of-the-week or some such, and in the prelim stuff the commentators (Reynolds and another guy) had a "scouting report" on the PU....don't rem his name. But in the bullets on the screen they had "sometimes inconsistent strike zone" and Harold commented on this and highlighted it for the viewing audience.

How would you like to be a MLB PU, getting ready for a nationally-televised game, and ESPN starts the festivities by having "sometimes inconsistent" displayed in front of America prior to the first pitch?

Kinda like a surgeon getting ready to cut and the hospital puts out a APB just prior, "by the way, his last 4 patients died on the table."


jee-ZUS!

Hey, no one says it's easy being a MLB ump. It's not easy umpiring anywhere, any time. Theirs is made worse by the omniscent presence of the media, who want to show how wrong they were on .0001 percent of their calls.

All that missed call goes to show is even with four of them, the big boys miss 'em too sometimes. No one is trying to badmouth them, that's for sure. Most of us would trade places in a heartbeat!

The last sentence makes it all worthwhile.

Couldn't have happened to a better bunch.