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Tigers manager Leyland ejected over ruling at first base | tigers.com: News

Comments?

1. I don't understand how Rapuano missed the initial (routine) call, but hey, he's human.
2. Given the "get it right" philosophy of new school umpiring, the crew acted correctly.
3. Leyland is old school and didn't like the reversal. :shrug:

Reading Rapuano's lips, you could see him say "Everyone in the whole [bleeping] place knows I missed it".

Ed is a good friend and old partner so I can't really rank on him too much. It's obvious that he "fell asleep" and took the $hitty end of the stick to boot.

Good learning opportunity here for rookies. You made a bad call and you know you did. You go for help and your partner tells you what he as (the opposite of what you called). You then change the call "to get it right" and you endure the wrath of the coach affected by the call. You let him vent for a while as it was your screw up that caused the whole problem. But when the coach animates what you do, he has to go. If Leyland didn't do that, he could have jawed at Ed for another hour and Ed would have kept agreeing with him.

See how it goes - they cry when we stick with our calls and they cry when we have "board meetings". If I have to eat $hit, I'd rather stick with my call and get chewed on. It's a personal preference so don't try to change my mind - after almost 40 years, it ain't gonna happen!

Totally disagree. If you cannot get calls like this right then you need to find something else to do. You cannot change every call that is missed even if you think it is missed. What are we going to take votes every time a play takes place? You should get it right the first time, not several minutes later.

Peace

Rut, you are correct, we should be getting our calls and you know that I am not a fan of "board meetings" to make a call.. But every now and then, something goes wrong. The "training" in this video is what to do when the manager comes out, not blowing the call.

Are we going to debate every call that is missed? This creates a slippery slope because every judgment call can be up for debate and certainly the close ones. If you cannot get this play right, find guys that will and you will not have this problem. The MLB needs to stop holding on to jobs of sons and of other umpires and give it to the best guys that grade out every year. I would not advocate any of this to a rookie do this unless they are MLB umpires.

Peace

You don't believe that Brian Runge and Hunter Wendelstedt are capable MLB umpires? I don't think the fact that these guys are sons of big league umpires means that they aren't doing their jobs. It may have influenced the hiring decision, but it is not what keeps them in the majors, it's their ability. Ed Rapuano is a terrific umpire, which goes to show that we all screw up calls once in a while. I don't see any of the MLB umpires blowing calls on a routine basis, or they would be out on their butts.

If they cannot get this call right the first time, then they need to get someone that does not have the same last name of a dad that umpired at that level. And my comment was really not about them, but the fact that this involved sons of former umpires is telling if you ask me. And if guys had to make calls with their job on the line, the quality in my opinion would improve. Other sports get rid of officials that cannot do the job no matter what their last name is. MLB seems to be stuck in whom once was an umpire and hiring their sons and not getting rid of guys that need to be replaced. I think this is the reason many of these obvious calls are missed. There is no competition and these guys can screw up without a threat they will be jobless next year. And just because these guys are decent umpires and their dad was once there does not make them better than others that also worked hard to get to that point.

Peace

I'm not all that enamored with Hunter. He had average skills and the Wendelstedt name. There were better AAA umpires when he came up.

He remains an average umpire. The bar should be raised.

This play, IMO, is an exception to the rule of getting your own on this play.

It's clear from Ed's delay that, for whatever reason, he had nothing and simply guessed at it. And then realized immediately he f*#$ed the call.

I've gone for help from the plate umpire on a play at first exactly twice in 24 years. Both of those were exceptions to the rule, too -- one was as a result of an F4 running right in front of me as the play happened at first base.

It could be another 12 years before I seek help again, it could be next week, or it might be never. No absolutes from me, but when people ask me in clinics about getting help, I (first) tell them to get the right angle in the first place and stop worrying about using another umpire to make your calls. Then I tell them how to go about doing it and mention that if they're doing it more than once every couple of years, they aren't working hard enough to get into position.

And if you were to follow what Rut is advocating, you wouldn't have been around for the secomd time.

There are more than enough officials around that believe the pedestal they sit on is much higher than it really is. It is good to see once in while that they wipe their butts just like us Rut.

Do not try to mis-characterize what I said on this issue. It is clear that this was a bad miss. If you cannot get that play right often enough you should not be at that level. And always falling back on getting help in my opinion is hurting umpiring at that level. If an NBA official cannot get the job done and constantly missing plays, they get rid of you. In the NFL if you cannot get plays right enough or even get out of shape, they get rid of you. In MLB, you can be out of shape, have the right last name and they will not get rid of you. And in that process they hold back other guys that could do the job better and the mantra is to hold onto this "Get it right" philosophy no matter how bad it makes them look. This was just one play that they made the right call, but there have been many others that have been wrong or very questionable over the last few years (like a first base umpire overruling a play a 3rd base on a tag/no tag play at 3rd last year). At least Jim Joyce's miss was forgivable as it was very close, but this play was not that close.

Peace

How often do you think Ed Rapuano misses that call? Or any other particular umpire? Give me an example of an MLB umpire who misses plays at first base on a regular basis. Just because collectively there are many examples of bad calls (of which there is no dispute), I would be very surprised if they were attributable to only a few umpires.

They aren't, and what they have in common (at least as a generality) is a soft throw on which the umpire can't use sound to make the decision.

Bob, that seems to be exactly what happened here. I know Leyland got kudos for sticking up for his team, but there comes a time when you have to show some respect for the game as well.

An umpire can also show some respect for the game by not approaching a play in the lazy, nonchalant manner in which Ed Rapuano did on this play.

Exactly. He made the call as if the BR were 10' safe.

He didn't seem all that nonchalant about it. Like Bob said, the soft toss took away the audio input while he was watching foot/bag and he was totally lost. He was pretty quick thinking after that with the "F3 was pulled off the bag" call that came after a very meek safe sign. That gave him as good a face-save as he could muster by being able to conference about whether F3 had his foot on the bag, conceding that the throw was there in time. I'm glad my brain-f@rts don't come under the scrutiny of 40,000 eyewitnesses and endless ESPN replays

Is it customary to wait a full 3 seconds (one mississippi, two mississippi, three mississippi) before making ANY signal?

I'm sure Mr Rapuano is a very good umpire or he would not be where he is today. Having said that, this is a perfect example that when you develop lazy habits it WILL bite you in the hind end one day.

Well, Tim McClelland didn't look much better tonight immediately signalling "out" on a play at the plate. The ball was on the ground and he had one foot on the grass with F2 directly between himself and the tag. But at least his out call was quick and authoritative, gotta give him points for that.

Definitely not.

After ten mississippi the customary call is to order everyone into the shower and throw a handful of bats at them :-)

For all those piling on Rap here...

Ever have a complete brain fart / regrettable moment on the field? I sure have. It has nothing to do with lazy umpiring and everything to do with a mental block that hit at a bad time. The human brain is so complex its amazing it doesn't happen more. You pile on him like he is a lazy, bad umpire just because some neurons didn't fire correctly and it left him looking bad.

I don't know Ed well. But I'd bet dollars to donuts that if HE were sitting in the crowd watching YOUR game and YOU had a mental hiccup, he'd be patting you on the back in the parking lot and talking to you about how to make sure it doesn't happen again. Would never even THINK about throwing labels on you the way you all have on here.

And for those actually interested in the umpiring side of it...

We discussed going past 90 degrees in another thread and that being the new philosophy in PBUC and MLB. It especially helps with short flips. Get wide and see the receiving side of the glove. You have to take in big picture all with your eyes on those plays. If you get caught focusing too much on the bag on these sorts of plays you will be more likely to miss them. Increase distance, go past 90 (less than 90), see the open side of the glove.

Ed is one of those rare umpires of whom none of the other umpires has anything bad to say.

He's one of the good guys.

What lazy habits? He was in the right position to make this call. The "lazy signal" was due to him not know what the hell happened. He tried processing the play and had nothing. Eventually, he gave a safe signal, said F3 was off the bag, and went right for Marquez.

I think some people in this thread should give Ed a break. He's one of the best umpires in MLB who simply screwed up a call and did everything in his power to make it right, including eating an inordinate amount of crap before he had no choice to run Leyland because Leyland was mocking him unnecessarily. And I don't blame Rap for getting pissed at Leyland after that display.

It amazes me how managers talk about getting it right -- it's not about that at all. They simply want everything to go their way. At every level.

Which was all-but confirmed by Leyland's comments in his press-conference before his team's Tuesday night game. (Google it).

I'll add that if I had been Alfonso Marquez, when Leyland stopped to talk to me on his way back to the dugout I'd have been pissed and told him, "Jim, don't you ever ****ing come out and ask me or my crew to ever change a ****ing call that you think we got wrong, ever. Whether it be later this year or ten ****ing years from now because you've just made it clear that you don't care about getting the ****ing calls right, only that the original call stand no matter what. Now get the **** out of here."

And I'm not ****ing joking, either.