With all the b!tchin'

[Kevin Finnerty]

For a while, when the umpiring was suffering after the Richie Phillips charade, it was attributable to there being too many relief-level umpires filling out all the new crews. Now that so many years have passed, Pete and others are asking why there is still a problem finding a sterling crew to work the World Series.

The Hallion thing was positioning like we discussed. The call at third with Welke was a fairly common type of play, and it even looked like he was almost in position to see the tag, but he missed it. No big deal. The Danley punch/appeal where Culbreth walked the guy was awful. And there is no truer statement in Pete's post than the one about any of us having a fart like that and it would be the last shot at a big game assignment. Danley's brother umpires in my unit, and we all got emails congratulating Kerwin for being on the crew and another when he got the plate assignment. It's terrible what happened. But it's part of the risk of performing at anything.