Mets Wagner bender for a BALL in 9th

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by Rich Fronheiser

The pitch is low. Why fight it? Those that say the catcher has no bearing on whether a pitch is a ball or a strike don't work higher level baseball or get yelled at a lot.

Hi gang, just getting ready to leave Pittsburgh on my road trip back to San Diego, and just thought I'd weigh in on this before leaving you for a few days (everyone praise the Lord all together now!).

The ball was down all the way, and though Darling started to ring it up, he should tremendous restraint in stopping his call, knowing full well that it was going to look bad. I compare it to when Tiger Woods stops in the middle of his downswing when he hears a camera shutter. It takes a lot of discipline to do this, which speaks well of Gary Darling's years of MLB experience.

See everyone Monday!

[Rich]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

Hi gang, just getting ready to leave Pittsburgh on my road trip back to San Diego, and just thought I'd weigh in on this before leaving you for a few days (everyone praise the Lord all together now!).

The ball was down all the way, and though Darling started to ring it up, he should tremendous restraint in stopping his call, knowing full well that it was going to look bad. I compare it to when Tiger Woods stops in the middle of his downswing when he hears a camera shutter. It takes a lot of discipline to do this, which speaks well of Gary Darling's years of MLB experience.

See everyone Monday!

I'll remember this the next time I try to explain my poor timing.

[Sal Giaco]

The "proper" term for Darling's flinch is a stee-ball . As mentioned earlier, it is the result of poor timing or not tracking the ball all the way into the catcher's glove. Unfortunately, it happened at a critical time and he got a lot of unwanted air time.

With that said, he absolutely made the right call because the pitch was down. While it didn't look pretty, ultimately, he got the call right - which is what MLB wants. It happens to all of us from time to time and big league umpires are no exception. The difference is... when it happens to us, very few people know about it. When it happens at Darling's level, 50,000 fans at the stadium see it and millions more on TV witness it over and over again.