WTF Was McCarver Talking About

[Spence]

R1. Long flyball to CF. CF runs after it, reaches for it, misses it. Ball bounces into the stands for a groundrule double. R1 returns to 3rd.

McCarver kept saying the Reds were lucky that the CF did not "touch the ball" before it went into the stands.

I am not an umpire but I do try to stay up on the rules. Is there some rule I'm missing that would have allowed R1 to score had it been determined that the CF touched the ball?

[UmpJM]

Spence,

No.

JM

[MikeStrybel]

Tim McCarver may have been an excellent athlete but he has a legacy of commentary misspeak. I will have to dig a bit but I once received an email with a link to McCarver and Joe Morgan blunders. It was pretty entertaining for those of us who understand the rules and terminology.

[biggravy]

Great ball player, now a total effing idiot. When he does commentary I watch games on mute.

[Stu Clary]

WTF is McCarver EVER talking about? Also: NOT a great ballplayer...but he turned being Steve Carlton's personal catcher into a lucrative career.

[Blue37]

Perhaps he meant it was good that the ball did not deflect into the stands off of the player. Only thing I can figure.

[greymule]

You guys are too hard on McCarver. He meant simply that by not touching the ball, the outfielder (and the Reds) avoided being charged with an error.

[mbyron]

Originally Posted by greymule

You guys are too hard on McCarver. He meant simply that by not touching the ball, the outfielder (and the Reds) avoided being charged with an error.

Maybe we are hard on him, but that's wrong, too.

[UMP 64]

He is an idiot, has-been that never was. He is a lifetime .250 avg. certainly nothing to brag about, and so true about being Charlton's jock strap catcher.
Where is Dion Sanders when we need him, to dump another bucket of ice water on McC and wake him up?????

[GA Umpire]

Originally Posted by UMP 64

He is an idiot, has-been that never was. He is a lifetime .250 avg. certainly nothing to brag about, and so true about being Charlton's jock strap catcher.
Where is Dion Sanders when we need him, to dump another bucket of ice water on McC and wake him up?????

While this may be true, he has the luxury many of us want. He got paid to play a game and he gets to watch games for a living. The one luxury (spoiler I guess) is to look like an idiot on national TV and doesn't know any better to realize how stupid he sounds. If all I had to do was try to avoid sounding stupid on TV but not accomplishing it very well, I'll take that job. Maybe I won't be as bad.

[SanDiegoSteve]

Originally Posted by UMP 64

He is an idiot, has-been that never was. He is a lifetime .250 avg. certainly nothing to brag about, and so true about being Charlton's jock strap catcher.

I really don't think you mean Norm Charlton, do you? Did you mean Steve Carlton, by chance?

[MD Longhorn]

Originally Posted by SanDiegoSteve

I really don't think you mean Norm Charlton, do you? Did you mean Steve Carlton, by chance?

No ... Charlton Fisk.

[seenitall]

Too hard on McCarver? Not possible.

[MD Longhorn]

Congratulations. You were the 100th person to start a thread with that exact title. You've won a year's supply of Rice-A-Roni, the San Francisco Treat.

[Suudy]

Not being up on the world of baseball commentators (I only watch Mariner's baseball and our local color guys), it sounds like McCarver is to baseball what Theisman is to football.