Screw You Replay, I Do It Myself *BIF
It’s not everyday that you see the umpires use video replay to determine if a ball was a home run or not, except at Fenway where it’s apparently turning into a daily occurrence.
Last night Omir Santos’ 9th inning 2-out, 2-run home run was originally ruled a double off the monster. But then Joe West and his crew went to the video and called it a home run. As a result, the Sox lost 3-2 instead of winning 2-1.
What does Cowboy Joe West do for an encore? With the Sox down by two, he calls Youks’ 5th inning shot above and inside the left field foul pole a foul ball. Luckily, as we learned the night before, there’s replay for this sort of thing. So West and company again go watch some video, come back on the field and correctly…what? You still think it’s a foul ball? Are you kidding me? How fucking blind are you?
Joe West has for years been known as a terrible umpire. Mostly because he’s probably the most arrogant SOB to wear the blue uniform (and that’s saying something). Sox fans have for years now given him a free pass because of the calls he overturned during game six of the 2004 ALCS. But after this weekend, I think he’s finally used up his free pass.
Youks got his revenge in the 7th when he destroyed a ball into the monster seats in the 7th inning to put the Sox ahead 12-5. I was a little surprised that West didn’t call this one foul because it was just to the left of the yellow home-run line in center field.
Even though NICK GREEEEEEN made about 3 boneheaded plays in the field, he and Kottaras combine to get the award for the “people not named David Ortiz least likely to be the offensive heros” with their combined 5-10 batting including three RBIs with two outs in the 5th that gave the Sox the lead for good. However, all was not perfect in Red Sox Nation today. Big Papi’s batting average is now officially below the Mendoza line.
There is no one with eyes who could have called that ball foul. Look, it’s hooking left, hooking left, hooking left… will it stay fair? The replay shows the ball on the right side of the left foul pole… it must have gone foul, dramatically changed course and then hooked right around the back of the foul pole just to be mean. So it’s either a homerun or a denial of the laws of physics.
The only explanation for the botched call I can come up with is that he couldn’t find the ball. Through the first few replays I couldn’t find it against the sky. When the guys in the booth finally pointed it out (and circled it on the screen) I could see it clearly pass in front of a sign on the monster. Maybe Mean Joe West just couldn’t find it? Same time though, if umps are going to be that technologically incompitent, then what’s the point of the damn system? Maybe someone who’s not so inept needs to show the replays to the umps and explain the minor details… like what a baseball looks like
Comment by john w — May 26, 2009 @ 11:40 am