We Wuz Robbed, Again
Tonight was my first and worst post-season baseball game. From the stands, it looked like the Halos just did not have their act together at all. Sure, there were a few close decisions here and there, but nothing egregious, and certainly nothing to account for the Sox winning by such a huge margin, right? Wrong. The first three Sox runs came in the first inning, when Paul Konerko homered after he had struck out, but the home base ump had mistakenly ruled he had checked his swing in time. A fourth came in the top of the fifth, when Scot Shields picked off Scott Podsednik on first base, Darin Erstad tagged him, and the ump ruled that he didn’t. That brings the score down to 4-2, still a Sox victory, but not by such an embarassing margin, but I’m not done yet. A third (logically, not temporally) bonehead call went against the Angels in the bottom of the second, converting what should have been a walk into a double play resulting in bases loaded and no outs. Maybe the Angels would have choked anyway and none of those runners – or at most one – would have scored. Or maybe not.
Right now, the Sox lead the ALCS 3-1 and are on the brink of winning the pennant. In an AL with umpires worthy of John Roberts’s analogy, I’d put the score at 1 to 1, with two games vacated.
October 16th, 2005 at 8:25 am
I hope the company was ok.
[It was, of course. On my left, literally if not necessarily figuratively, were two members of the Calblog family who generously invited me to the game. On my right, literally and almost certainly not figuratively, were too wild and crazy ChiSox fans reminiscent of the SNL Superfans.]
October 16th, 2005 at 9:41 am
Woulda Coulda Shoulda
That is baseball.
If the Angels play better then they will win.
October 16th, 2005 at 10:16 am
No argument there. I didn’t keep stats, but it seemed as though they walked at least one batter every inning, hitting one and making numerous wild pitches that didn’t count as wild pitches because there was no runner on base. Statistically, those were just ordinary balls, but non-statistically, they were pretty poor. Between that and their lackluster hitting in all the innings where there weren’t any bad calls, the Angels were definitely not on their game last night, and the Sox were.
Still, with bad calls accounting for a six run spread, I’m not sure there’s anything the Angels could have done to “win” last night’s game even if they had had their act together (which they didn’t). Having to “really” beat the other team by 7 in order to get credit for beating them at all is a tall order even when your team is at its peak.
October 17th, 2005 at 11:13 am
The only post-season baseball game I ever went to was the 1988 World series, Game 1. I doubt I’ll see a better one.
October 17th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
A third (logically, not temporally) bonehead call went against the Angels in the bottom of the second, converting what should have been a walk into a double play resulting in bases loaded and no outs
I do agree with you on the bad calls, but a minor correction here. There would still have been one out, as there was before the “double play” ENDED the inning.
But I also note that the Angels play in the game in question(and the next) was not exactly impressive. Arguably the costliest goof was still the “dropped” third strike in game two.
Meanwhile, I can’t help thinking that the officiating crew must be the same one that made a whole SERIES of bad calls against the Phillies in the final three weeks of the season. [Yes, I know it was different crews...but their goofs all looked the same!] Very likely if any one of those calls had been corrected the Phillies would have beat the Astros outright for the wildcard, or at least forced a one-game tie-breaker to settle it. (Nothing against the latter. I’m eager to see them knock the Cards out tonight.)
In short. . . I feel your pain, but at least the Angels got the chance!
October 17th, 2005 at 8:11 pm
California makes afine whine…