Good SI article on the call

[bighurt574]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=cnns...cnnsi&type=lgns

[Queen Prawn]

Thanks for posting the link.

[Wedge]

That sums it up very well.

[Texsox]

Thanks for posting the link.

Thanks for thanking him, it saved me a post

 

Nice article. Of course anyone that looks favorably on the men in black sounds good to me.

[Controlled Chaos]

http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=cnns...cnnsi&type=lgns

I agree with everything except the "A simple "No catch" or "I've got it on the ground" comment. I think Rex Hudler cleared that up in another post with these comments:

 

As an umpire in that situation, you are not saying "no catch" like you would in a trap/no trap call in the infield or outfield. You say strike three and shut the hell up. It is not up to the umpire to in essence tell the fielding team what to do, nor to give the runner a heads up to go.

 

It's the same as if a runner slides at the plate and never touches it and the catcher never tags him. You don't say anything, you just do nothing. It is up to the players to play the game if you don't call him out.

 

Let's say that AJ is walking back to the dugout thinking the ball was caught and the umpire says "no catch" as Paul was suggesting. Rather than waiting for the runner to head back toward 1B, Paul routinely flips the ball to 1B for the out. But instead, Paul throws the ball into RF and AJ, who is still standing between the plate and the 3B dugout runs and makes it to first safely.

 

It could be argued then that the umpire created the situation because he told the players what to do even though AJ was in essence giving himself up. In situations like this, the players are responsible to know what is going on. It is not up to the umpire to tell them how to play.

[LosMediasBlancas]

Clearly, I'm biased and if the shoe were on the other foot it would suck for us, but I really don't see the other side of the argument.

We've looked at the replay a thousand times and it's still unclear, yet the ump was expected to call AJ out at the time it happened??

Paul snoozed, period, sorry Sucka.

[Molto]

I've been arguing this exact point since last night. Paul didn't toss the ball because of Eddings call.

[Wanne]

Best story I've read about this yet.

[nitetrain8601]

I'll sum this up real nicely. Who gives a s***? We won, they didn't. They're not going to reverse the call or give the game back to the Angels. People need to STFU and accept it for what it was. Good call, bad call, it don't matter anymore.

[Controlled Chaos]

I'll sum this up real nicely. Who gives a s***? We won, they didn't. They're not going to reverse the call or give the game back to the Angels. People need to STFU and accept it for what it was. Good call, bad call, it don't matter anymore.

 

It's just fun to talk about it....dam dude we have a day to kill here...Why you bustin up the party.

[nitetrain8601]

It's just fun to talk about it....dam dude we have a day to kill here...Why you bustin up the party.

 

I'm talking in terms of people b****ing about this call saying, "Oh the umps costed us a victory." No one knows what would've happened(well we know the Rally Crede would've came through in the 10th instead of the 9th). I hate Angels fans who are assuming they would've won the game.

[The Ginger Kid]

Phil Rogers makes a great point too:

 

There's something about Josh Paul and the postseason, and so far it hasn't been good.

 

Mike Scioscia and Los Angeles Angels fans may spend the next few decades cursing umpire Doug Eddings the way St. Louis fans have Don Denkinger, but maybe Scioscia shouldn't have had his third-string catcher in a tie game.

 

 

Anybody ever think of that?

 

Paul, a Buffalo Grove native and graduate of Vanderbilt, a guy who once wrote a great piece in the Tribune about a former teammate who died in the World Trade Center, either did or didn't allow a third strike from A.J. Pierzynski to hit the ground in the ninth inning Wednesday night, setting the stage for one of the wildest finishes to a playoff game ever.

 

There's one thing everyone will agree he didn't do. He didn't do as catchers routinely do on borderline calls in the dirt--tag the batter to make sure of the out.

 

Isn't that customary?

 

"Yes," Eddings said almost 45 minutes after Joe Crede lined a hanging split-finger fastball to give the White Sox a chaotic 2-1 victory in Game 2 of the American League Championship Series. "That's why I'm pretty shocked about what took place. That was what I was talking to Scioscia about."

 

This isn't the first shocking day in the playoffs for Paul, who was added to the White Sox's postseason roster on the day of Game 1 against Seattle in 2000. He was taking the place of backup Mark Johnson, who had been on the team all season, and wound up catching Keith Foulke (for maybe the fourth time that year) as the Mariners scored three runs in the 10th to start themselves toward a sweep.

 

It was easy to feel for Paul in 2000. He didn't make the decision to drop Johnson from the roster. Ron Schueler and (maybe) Jerry Manuel did, and it cost them. This time it is Scioscia who, while he will paint himself and his team as victims of a strange call, must live with having put a No. 3 catcher in a 1-1 tie.

 

Two outs, nobody on base, two strikes on Pierzynski in the ninth. Kelvim Escobar, running on fumes, throws a low pitch past a swinging Pierzynski. Eddings uses his right fist to signal strike three, and that's when the craziness begins.

 

Pierzynski takes a step across home plate toward the White Sox's dugout and Paul, who had entered the game after Scioscia pinch-ran for Jose Molina in the eighth, rolls the ball toward the mound, already vacated by Escobar. Pierzynski changes directions and dashes to first, getting there before the Angels could recover and throw there.

 

If the White Sox, who tied the series one game apiece, use this recovery as a springboard to their first World Series appearance since 1959, the Angels fans always will complain whether the pitch hit the dirt in the first place. Paul insists it didn't. Eddings, crew chief Jerry Crawford and umpire supervisor Rich Reiker all say that replays show it did.

 

But the question is this: Why didn't Paul just tag Pierzynski?

 

"I caught the ball," Paul calmly repeated in the Angels' clubhouse. "When you catch the ball, you just walk off the field. . . . I'm a little confused because I thought I caught the ball."

 

Before meeting with reporters, the umpires watched multiple replays of the pitch from Escobar, which seemingly disappeared into Paul's mitt just above ground level.

 

"We've looked at it in the truck," Reiker said. "We've blown it up. I'm sure some of you have seen that angle. . . . There was definitely a change of direction there. At this point I say at best it's inconclusive. I wouldn't totally agree that the ball was caught, but there was a change in direction there that we saw and the replay is available to us."

 

Eddings said his pumped fist was his "mechanics" for calling strike three. That signal does not mean the play is over on a pitch in the dirt. That's a second call altogether, and Pierzynski was smart--and experienced--to run when there was no second call.

 

"It happened to me last year in San Fran," Pierzynski said. "I was the catcher and I did that. The pitcher tried to bunt and he didn't get it down. . . . That [pitcher ran halfway to the dugout and then ran to first] and they called him safe. That popped in the back of my head just to run, and if he calls me out, he calls me out."

 

Paul said most plate umpires usually say something like "no catch, no catch," if the ball is in the dirt. He assumed the play was over because he heard nothing. But Eddings says he never says that, and every elementary school kid has been taught what happens when you assume something.

 

Scioscia defended Paul.

 

"He called him out, and that's what is disappointing," Scioscia said. "When an umpire calls a guy out and you're the catcher, and I've caught my share of them, he's out."

 

Not this time.

 

"I've never seen that," Paul said. "It's a one-in-a-million situation. I don't know if anyone has seen that."

 

Darin Erstad, the Angels' first baseman, was among those getting some continuing education. He knew the Angels were in trouble before most of his teammates. The ball was rolling toward the mound, Pierzynski was running up the first-base line and Eddings was paying way too much attention to all of this action.

 

"Once I watched Josh roll the ball to the mound, I'm ready to go," Erstad said. "Doug was still watching the play. He didn't take his helmet off. A.J. was still running. That's when I knew something wasn't the way it was supposed to be . . .

 

"People, when they say they've seen it all, they haven't seen it all."