What gets to me is that no one is criticizing the catcher for the shoddy "toreador" tag.

I don't think the catcher deserves such criticism, myself.

[QUOTE]Rich IMO, the aforementioned is the crux of the issue.

"back in the day" whether the runner was actually tagged or not was irrelevant. The ball beat the runner by a good margin and the call would have been out and for the most part no one would have said anything.

Now we have a zillion angles and the "neighborhood play" along with the expected call are now "out the window"

IMO, the MLB umpires are looking for "too much evidence" since they know a game ended play or any play for that matter will be reviewed a zillion times.

Pretty soon we will not have to wait for MLB / The Players union or anyone else for that matter to push for IR. The umpires themselves will push for it so they do not have to take all the flak they are presently taking.

Pete Booth

Me neither, now that I know it wasn't a toreador tag - the bullfighter motion comes AFTER the tag as he's trying to show the umpire the ball.

No time to clear the bat, he's tossing it behind him as the ball is coming in. Which makes for no adjustment to swipe tag and way too close to the play.

Screw the bat... if the catcher wants it out of there on a ground ball to the infield he can get rid of it himself. I'm not compromising my job and my call just to provide a courtesy.

19th inning... Meals is a good umpire too. Can happen to any of us.

My thinking as well when I first saw the video.

Rita

I couldn't agree more. I constantly side with umpires when having discussion amongst family or friends. But this one can't be defended. Meals just missed it. It doesn't make him a bad umpire, he just kicked it for whatever reason. It happens.

[QUOTE=PeteBooth;775489]Pete,
Don't get them started on the 'expected call' debate. Sheesh!

Mike

The call is what the call is...what Jerry thought he saw happen. Pirate reaction was expected and they filed a formal complaint today.

Now, here is what is really awful. From ESPN.com

"Meanwhile, the daughter of Meals, Laci, confirmed that Meals' family has been harassed since the controversial call, ESPN.com's Amy K. Nelson reports. She declined to talk further or answer any other questions. The specifics of that harassment are unknown.

An Internet search of the Meals' home phone number showed at least two message boards posted their home address and telephone number last night."

Meals just turned 50, so his kids may still be school age and at home. We all mess up, but few of us become targets like this. When an umpire's family is threatened and harrassed, lines have been crossed.

Buster Olney is proposing a fifth umpire (again) stationed in a replay booth. If we keep seeing more calls like this, it may not be long before some form of replay is enacted. There are simply too many dollars riding on the calls.

Maybe, but if this was the NFL model where you need conclusive evidence to turnover the call, this call would have been very hard to overturn. And the problem with baseball is that there are not always great angles to get plays right. So you can have replay, but many of these close plays will not change because of the limitations of the angles. And the only reason that people think this was missed is because of the "expected" call scenario rather than what really happened.

Peace

My toughest call (at least for me) is a swipe tag especially when the play is going away from me. From what I can see the swipe tag seemed to get his leg. Both teams expected an out. When you go against the expected call you better be 100% right. If you're not sure or didn't get a good look go with the expected call This is just my opinion. Meals from what I read didn't seem so confident of his call. Hey if he kicked it he kicked it we've all missed calls and life goes on. Frankly I wouldn't blame him if he missed it he had to be exhausted what with him being on his feet for 6+ hours and focusing on every pitch.

The tag can be seen just fine. RichMSN provided a link here and there are plenty others on CNN, ESPN, MSNBC, YouTube and on TV (QuickPitch had a couple great looks at the out) that are as conclusive. Out.

Bring on replay for MLB already.

Wrong. Every replay that was being shown last night - both on ESPN highlights and on MLB.com - CLEARLY showed the tag missing the runner. Multiple angles at multiple speeds. It was nearly half a day later before anyone produced a video that began convincing the readers here of the missed call. If all the umpires had were the ESPN replays to deal with at the game, this would not have been overturned.

Imagine the outrage then! "How can you miss this call with replay?!?!?!"

The replays clearly showed a missed tag....when the tag was not missed? HUH?

I disagree that the replays shows a definitive tag. There was no definitive angle and why if they had to use the "conclusive" model that other sports use then that would have been iffy. The best argument the media said was "The throw beat him." Well that is not a very good standard because throws beat runners all the time on tag plays and the fielder does not make the tag.

And forget this play; there are a lot of plays that show no angle. I remember about a week ago there was a play with a foul ball/fair ball play with the White Sox and there was no angle that could be conclusive. Of course we could have an opinion, but not where anything could be said one way or the other. That is the problem if they go to replay in MLB. The angles are not going to be good in many ball parks to change anything IMO.

Peace