Adventures in Officiating (Revised)

After some contentious conversations with Smuckers and Lloyd Braun, I have decided to revise my entry from last week. Of course this posting is an example of my bitterness towards the Phillies and their deplorable fan base.

I found it very amusing to campare the two sets of Marlins/Phillies announcers that commented on the controversial call by Bob Davidson in the bottom of the 9th on August 5th. It's possible that the Marlins announcers don't understand baseball's simple Rule 2.00 that "a FAIR BALL is a batted ball that settles on fair ground between home and first base, or between home and third base, or that is on or over fair territory when bounding to the outfield past first or third base, or that touches first, second or third base, or that first falls on fair territory on or beyond first base or third base, or that, while on or over fair territory touches the person of an umpire or player, or that, while over fair territory, passes out of the playing field in flight."

In this play's case, the ball hit a foot before 3rd base just inside the line and subsequently landed a six feet or so past 3rd base about 6 inches inside the line. It certainly is possible that a ball can take a funny bounce or bend a bit around the bag because of unusual spin. In this case, the camera angle was inconclusive. Davidson certainly had the best angle, but this was a very tough call given the speed of the ground ball. My best guess, however, is that it was most likely a fair ball given how close to 3rd it initially bounced and that its next bounce was several inches in fair territory.

This discussion is clearly moot at this point, but I had to raise it in the spirit of this glorious blog's name. Besides, the Mets were beneficiaries of a terrible call on July 18th where a SF Giants baserunner was called out at the plate in the bottom of the 9th of a tie game. Replays showed he was safe. Either way, the Mets only have won 6 times since the break. Like I said last week, RIP 2010 Mets.