May 10, 2010 at 8:54 am
Steve Jones - Editor (5/10/2010)
And a perfect game for Moneyball. Very cool and wish I'd been able to see it.
Against Tampa Bay, no less. Looks like the Rays are starting to cool off a bit.
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May 10, 2010 at 9:25 am
Yanks only .5 back. Still might be a race there. I wouldn't count out Boston either. A few years ago the Yanks were like 13 or 14 out in May and made the playoffs.
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May 10, 2010 at 9:48 am
And it's only the beginning of May, lot's of baseball left. In Chicago, they already seem to want to know if the season is over for the White Sox and should they start to unload salaries. Come on, we still have 4+ months to play!
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June 3, 2010 at 9:29 am
Wow, two major stories on the same day: perfection lost on a blown call, and a future Hall of Famer calls it a career.
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June 3, 2010 at 10:08 am
There's been a crazy number of non-invisible umpire performances this season. In my world a great game for an umpire is one where no calls are discussed, just events in the game. If an umpire is doing something where his name becomes newsworthy it's probably not good.
Part of the problem is the incredible amount of detail a fan has acccess to when viewing games. There are high def broadcasts that don't miss anything, tons of replays from a lot of angles and a huge amount of video is online so you can see things even if you missed the broadcast. As a result players and umpires are under an incredible microscope these days. That's the other part of the issue: you don't get much opportunity to make mistakes anymore without the whole world coming down on you. Everyone remembers Don Denkinger's bad call in the 1985 World Series, but that's because it was the World Series. Back then the furor over most bad calls was limited to the week afterwards and whenever else a local columnist might recall it. There wasn't much visibility and there was no memory (other than huge events like the World Series). These days there's more national press to share local observances, and many more voices commenting on everything. While a screwed up perfect game might be significant enough that everyone hears about Jim Joyce yelling at himself, many folks might not have heard about Ed Rapuano yelling at that Royals pitcher two weeks ago or Joe West's balk calls and eventual tossing of Mark Buerhle or Bill Hohm yelling at Roy Oswalt or Dana DeMuth's crew not going to the replay and incorrectly changing a home run to a double against the Rangers or any of the other examples of poor umpiring over the past month. It's so very easy to whip up a list of links to video of the umpire antics, or to search the news for instances of Cardinals players and TLR complaining about pitchers "disrespecting" their team by pitching inside (or Cardinal pitcher beaning opponents' hitters...) Anyway, pick a point and you can quickly produce a basket of examples with pictures and video to illustrate it and it isn't hard and it won't cost much money.
Umpires have been hot heads and fat and lazy and prima donas and egotistical and dumb and blind and corrupt and ignorant for 120 years. There might be a little more confrontation in the air than in the past, but bad umpiring is not new. The difference is these days you can see the mistakes better, and if you miss one there are a thousand people on hand to point them out for you and to link them into elaborate patterns (realistic or not.)
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June 4, 2010 at 8:30 am
I don't disagree with your sentiment, but I don't think what happened to Galarraga on Wednesday should be included in that mix. To his credit, Jim Joyce owned up to his mistake and apologized profusely to everyone involved. Jim Joyce is a veteran and a well-respected umpire -- even Jim Leyland said as much -- and has garnered support all around the league after this incident.
Regardless of what we all think, umpires are human, just like the rest of us. They're not going to get it right all the time. Nobody likes bad calls, but they are a part of the game.
I do, however, agree that if you don't notice the umpire, he's doing his job well. I, too, am getting sick of these prima donnas like Joe West and the guy (whose name escapes me) who threw out Roy Oswalt the other day.
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June 7, 2010 at 3:19 pm
Which one of the two umpires is Jim Joyce? The Plate Umpire or First Base Umpire? Shocking decision whoever made it. If I was the base Umpire with my limited experience of two games I would certainly called the batter-runner out.
Anyhow, was gonna ask something else. Went to a BAWP (Baseball Association Western Province here in South Africa) workshop this weekend, and some of the questions thrown at the audience had to do with what rules to enforce in the Junior leagues in order to develop the game. What they came up with as suggestions was to 1) re-introduce the 5 run rule for U-12, U-14 and U-16 (yeah, we run different age groups compared to the Northern Hemisphere), as well as to reinforce Pitch Counts (40, 50 and 65 as per the age groups above). On top of that the Coaches Commission was of the opinion that pitchers shouldn't catch and catchers shouldn't pitch in the same game. I'm for all the above, especially the two last issues just to get the clubs to train more pitchers. What are your opinions? How is this handled in Junior League in the States?
Oh, by the way our local Western Province U-12 side is going to the Little League Playoffs in Poland. Good Luck to the boys!
June 8, 2010 at 6:23 am
I can't speak for the vast majority but my nephew's league (13 & 14 years old), pitchers cannot pitch more than 10 innings over a 48 hour period. The coach will usually limit them to 95 pitches, total, but that is their decision. I don't see anything wrong with the pitcher also being the catcher in the same game. Not sure what a 5 run rule is but we have a 10 run slaughter rule where if after 3 innings of play, a team is ahead by 10 or more runs, the game ends, obviously with a winner and loser. Otherwise, the better teams could really run up the score. I coach girls baketball, and out of courtesy, I will back my team off the scoring if we start to get way ahead. Just good sportsmanship. They're kids and don't need to be embarassed. I think a lot of adults tend to forget that part of the game! Take away the fun and the kids will turn away from the game.
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June 8, 2010 at 7:08 am
The five run rule simply means that once a team has scored five runs in an innings it is side away, exactly for the reason you mentioned, keep the fun in the game, which is indeed the main focus with the juniors.
The thinking behind not allowing pitchers to catch and vice versa is that the catchers do almost as much throwing as the pitchers do, and allowing pitchers 40 (or 50 or 65) pitches per day, then letting him catch as well could push that up to 80 (or 100 or 130) throws. Too hard on a youngsters arm and shoulder.
June 8, 2010 at 8:37 am
Jan Van der Eecken (6/8/2010)
The thinking behind not allowing pitchers to catch and vice versa is that the catchers do almost as much throwing as the pitchers do, and allowing pitchers 40 (or 50 or 65) pitches per day, then letting him catch as well could push that up to 80 (or 100 or 130) throws. Too hard on a youngsters arm and shoulder.
Hmm, never thought of that. I'll have to mention it to my brother-in-law so he can speak with the coach about that a little bit. Don't want the kids having "dead-arm" or needing some type of surgery before their eighteenth birthday.
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June 8, 2010 at 2:28 pm
Jan Van der Eecken (6/7/2010)
Which one of the two umpires is Jim Joyce? The Plate Umpire or First Base Umpire? Shocking decision whoever made it. If I was the base Umpire with my limited experience of two games I would certainly called the batter-runner out.
In the game in question, Jim Joyce was the first base umpire. Honestly, I admire him for how he handled the entire thing; he even went as far to say that ". . . if I was (Detroit Tigers manager) Jim Leyland, I would've been right in my face, too."
BTW, Major League Baseball actually has four umpires, one at each base. Different levels might use a different number of umpires; I've seen some youth league games where the only ump was the one behind home plate.
Just curious: does South Africa have a professional baseball league? (And while I'm at it, can I safely assume that World Cup fever has taken over?)
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June 9, 2010 at 2:43 am
Ray K (6/8/2010)
BTW, Major League Baseball actually has four umpires, one at each base. Different levels might use a different number of umpires; I've seen some youth league games where the only ump was the one behind home plate.
Major Baseball down here also requires four umpires. Was just asking "which one of the two" because the video I saw on YouTube showed only two of them. In youth leagues up to U-14 we generally have just a plate umpire, although it is at the discretion of the coaches/managers to appoint a base umpire as well (usually fielded by the away team). from U-16 upwards and in the lower senior leagues there always have to be two umpires.
Just curious: does South Africa have a professional baseball league?
No, the only pro's in the leagues are guys who come over from the States during the US off-season to help with junior coaching.
(And while I'm at it, can I safely assume that World Cup fever has taken over?)
It definitely has, just 2 days and 5 hours and 17 minutes left till kick-off. Half the cars in Cape Town are driving around with little SA flags, I've got a big one hanging over my chair, and we each have just received our Bafana jerseys, courtesy of the company. Friday afternoon we stop working at 14:30 and will be watching the opening and the SA-Mexico game on the big screen in the staff room.
June 9, 2010 at 9:29 am
Jan Van der Eecken (6/9/2010)
Ray K (6/8/2010)
(And while I'm at it, can I safely assume that World Cup fever has taken over?)
It definitely has, just 2 days and 5 hours and 17 minutes left till kick-off. Half the cars in Cape Town are driving around with little SA flags, I've got a big one hanging over my chair, and we each have just received our Bafana jerseys, courtesy of the company. Friday afternoon we stop working at 14:30 and will be watching the opening and the SA-Mexico game on the big screen in the staff room.
I was reading this article, and it occurred to me that we Yanks don't have a cool nickname for our national team like everyone else does. I especially love Cameroon's nickname: the "Indomitable Lions." Maybe we can be called the "Golden Eagles" or something like that.
So what exactly does "Bafana Bafana" mean, anyway?
Edit: spelling!
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June 9, 2010 at 9:52 am
Ray K (6/9/2010)
Jan Van der Eecken (6/9/2010)
Ray K (6/8/2010)
(And while I'm at it, can I safely assume that World Cup fever has taken over?)
It definitely has, just 2 days and 5 hours and 17 minutes left till kick-off. Half the cars in Cape Town are driving around with little SA flags, I've got a big one hanging over my chair, and we each have just received our Bafana jerseys, courtesy of the company. Friday afternoon we stop working at 14:30 and will be watching the opening and the SA-Mexico game on the big screen in the staff room.
I was reading this article, and it occurred to me that we Yanks don't have a cool nickname for our national team like everyone else does.
So true, never thought of that.
Maybe we can be called the "Golden Eagles" or something like that.
Hey, that's too close to Nigeria, them being the "Super Eagles" 🙂
So what exactly does "Bafana Bafana" mean, anyway?
It means "The Boys, The Boys", but don't ask me in which of the nine official black languages. And it certainly isn't Afrikaans either.
June 9, 2010 at 10:17 am
Jan Van der Eecken (6/9/2010)
Maybe we can be called the "Golden Eagles" or something like that.
Hey, that's too close to Nigeria, them being the "Super Eagles" 🙂
That's okay. I'll settle for "Yankees." (Says he, the New York Yankees fan . . . ) 😀
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