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If the erratic strike zone went both ways, then one bad call didn't cost your team the game. What goes a lot farther towards costing your team the game is having your best player ejected for arguing balls and strikes.
It does unless you're suggesting that all at bats are created equal. The laughably bad call in the first (to wring up Chipper on a knuckler that more or less bounced to the catcher) didn't turn the game. The pathetic 3-0 auto-strike against Pedroia didn't change the outcome. Giving J.D. Drew a free swing after he took strike three down the middle, allowing him to drive in the go-ahead run on the next pitch late in the game (and leading directly to the ejection of the Braves' best player) - that cost Atlanta the game.
There's no reason for any ratioanl mammal to defend the umpiring in this game.
You know, Chipper could have let Cox do the arguing and kept his fool mouth shut. I don't understand why he felt it was necessary to get involved in the argument. You make it sound like Chipper had no choice but to get ejected, which is nonsense.
And yeah, the umpiring sucked terribly. No argument here. But that doesn't mean Jones had to get tossed from the game. Let Bobby do his thing and keep yourself in the game to give your team a chance to win.
Sometimes frustrations boil over. If he were a robot he would have minimized the threat to his being ejected. Luckily for us, he is not a robot. I regret only that he didn't punch Hahn in the face. Maybe rip that damned mustache out hair by hair. That would have kicked ass.
Seriously, if the Braves didn't pinch for for Anderson he'd have been at the plate in the 9th instead of Diaz. Too many factors to say ONE THING cost the Braves the game.
This. The seemingly guaranteed strike on a 3-0 count gets a little old.
Oh, please. In such situations it's Cox' job to make a scene and get himself tossed, not Chipper's. I agree that Hahn was terrible, but it's more than fair to say Chipper unduly lost his cool and hurt his team in a close game.
Um, no, it's actually nothing like that. The difference is Chipper allowed to wear whatever he wants in his free time. He is not allowed to argue with umpires that way at any point during a baseball game.
Oh, you're right, I can see the difference in our respective characterizations. Insulting the ump about how he is calling balls and strikes is fundamentally different than arguing about whether or not a given pitch was a ball or strike. I apologize for impinging Chipper's honor like that.
I'm suggesting that cause and effect (probably) don't work the way you seem to be suggesting. JD Drew's AB is fundamentally different with a man on 1st and 2nd and none out. And who knows if that situation even arises if any of the other missed calls during the game are called correctly.
But I'm at least glad to see you're taking an even handed and rational approach to your team's loss.
Yes, the umpiring was poor
Yes, it was a strike,
Yes, it directly lead to a run
Yes, it is understandable for Chipper to let it boil over.
No, it doesn't mean Chipper is blame less in getting thrown out. He is responsiable for his actions.
The umpires job is to stay out of the way, not become the story.
Gandhi didn't piss and whine and moan when he got thrown in jail for breaking the law. He knew it was going to happen, and accepted it beforehand as the cost of doing business.
It's good advice.
Every team has at least one ump who they think is trying to screw them. In the case of the Jays, it used to be Joe Brinkman (who probably was trying to screw the Jays, but only after Ernie Whitt accused him of it in his autobiography), and now it's Phil Cuzzi and Angel Hernandez.
Of course, when it comes to umpires, people aren't always fully rational in their evaluations.
We'll give you those calls when you return the Eric Gregg calls and the resultant wins for Glavine and Maddux. :)
What form did this feud take? Did he refuse to give Glavine the opposite batter's box, I mean "outside corner", as a strike?
I know, but Jays fans generally believe that he (and Cuzzi) screw over the Jays worse. Fans almost always think that umps are out to screw their team worse than any other team.
EDIT: Incidentally, I loved your work on The Mouse and the Mask.
It's good advice.
and if you have an incompetent umpire who is changing the basic dynamic of the games by effectively rewriting the rules based upon the count then I guess you can't complain either? Crappy officiating should never be accepted at the level they are playing at. (btw I'm someone who agrees with you on the spirit of your coaches comments)
Most long-time Braves fans are aware of Bill Hahn vs. Tom Glavine, which went on for several years. If Hahn was behind the plate, no way was Glavine going to get a call all day, and more times than not, it was an early day for him. Hahn has been doing this crap for years, and apparently getting away with it. It's like a rogue cop, who is well known for singling out people to harass and confront, with the department turning a blind eye.
There is pretty much no long time Braves fan that can complain about an umps officiating. For years the Braves were the Michael Jordan of baseball, if there was one team getting an unfortunate amount of calls going their way it was the Braves. (of course when you expand the catchers box it helps)
This doesn't take away from your general point that there are some umps that seem to have it against a team. (or in case of Angel Hernandez, the whole world)
Interesting ump choice, given that Gregg was behind the plate for one of the most ugly officiating exhibitions AGAINST the Braves, Game 6 of the 1997 NLCS vs. the Marlins and Livan Hernandez. Also, he is dead.
Which is the much more sane way to look at it, rather than some ump being out to screw specific individuals or teams. Even the most incompetent and grandstanding umpires at least seem to make every attempt to remain impartial in their idiocy.
Eric Gregg? Seriously? Interesting.
Fantastic album.
Unless it's Joey Crawford we are talking about and he is reffing a Spurs game (more specifically a Tim Duncan played game).
We know a significant sub-set of MLB umpires are HORRIFIC. Hahn, Angel Hernandez, Tim Merriweather, etc. We also know that the complaint "the refs are bought" is no longer exactly conspiracy mongering, thanks to the NBA. Sure, most of the time they're probably simply incompetent, but that's not exactly a selling point is it?
@26, you make a fine point with the eye/neck thing. Me personally, I'd rather take a chance on the neck, go for the aorta and just hope he bleeds out there where I can see.
Yes, 1 game with Livan nonwithstanding. God bless G&M;, they could pinpoint a pitch 6" outside, 6" low and good ole' Eric would call strike after strike. Game after game. Year after year.
I consider the Livan game a hoisting on the petard.
As long as someone is getting stabbed, I'm happy. Life is so frustrating. It's nice to vent.
You're not famililar with Sam's work, I take it. There's probably some forum somewhere where he remains in a heated debate about that call from the Astros-Braves playoff series.
I consider the Livan game a hoisting on the petard.
agreed, can't believe a Braves fan would think that over the long haul Gregg was bad to the Braves. An Eric Gregg Braves game was an absolute farce. Make it a Glavine/Maddux Gregg game and there was absolutely no reason to even bother showing up to the ball park. The pitchers would get absolutely impossible to hit balls called strike all day long, but only while wearing a Braves uni.
That stache is awesome. His umpiring, not so much.
The phenomena you're referencing is called "hitting the spots." Eric Gregg was a terrible umpire. So terrible, in fact, that truly great pitchers like Maddux and Glavine could exploit his terribleness as needed. If a pitcher could hit the same spot a few inches wide over and over again, Gregg (and many other umpires) would call start calling it a strike by the third or fourth inning. This fact was exploited by Maddux and Glavine with great success - their job was to get outs, not to make sure the umps didn't make bad calls. In the same era other elite pitchers exploited the same tendency. Al Leiter was a master of getting inside cutters called strikes. Half of Randy Johnson's sliders never whiffed the actual strike zone. Kevin Brown would creep further and further out with every passing inning.
This is not an argument against the Braves' greatness. I'm already on record for replacing the morons in blue with lasers. Maybe keep one ceremonial ump around in case somone needs stabbing.
I consider the Livan game a hoisting on the petard.
This is ridiculous.
Last year at the SABR convention I was standing with Mike Emiegh, and we decided to ask whoever came up to us who the worst umpire in baseball was. The next 4 or 5 people all said Bucknor.
Oh, snap!
Had Cowboy Joe West recently retired? Because, unless he had, these people were all wrong.
The phenomena you're referencing is called "hitting the spots." Eric Gregg was a terrible umpire. So terrible, in fact, that truly great pitchers like Livan Hernandezcould exploit his terribleness as needed...
OK, I was hyperbolic. But 1" is hyperbolic too. I'll split the difference.
The primary problem with Game 6 of the '97 NLCS, from a Braves' fan perspective, was that 1) Hernandez was NOT hitting his spots. He was just slinging #### up there randomly and Gregg would call it strikes. At the same time, Maddux WAS hitting his spots, better and more consistently than Hernandez, closer even to the actual strike zone, and he was getting no calls at all. The problem wasn't the ineptitude of Gregg - a well established fact long prior to that game - but the clear bias in his calls. If there were ever a "Joey Crawford" moment in MLB, that was it. Gregg was *clearly* calling the game in Florida's favor.
Six may be a bit much, but I don't think there's a jury in the world that'd convict me for saying three or four.
Which is not to criticize the pitchers, of course. If someone gives you a a strike, you take it.
Which one?
Which call or which series?
I don't remember all the details, though I'm it involved a disputed homer/play against the wall at Minute Maid. I'm sure you can take it from there.
Well, that's simply not true. It wasn't "routine", but I witnessed it firsthand multiple times. And not just with Braves pitchers but others as well. Until Qestec showed up and exposed some of this silliness you had umps calling some absurd strike zones.
Hernandez may zap the Jays on occasion, but the Mets are on his permanent sheeit list...
Hernandez may zap the Jays on occasion, but the Mets are on his permanent sheeit list...
I'm sure he has it out more for TLR than the Mets, of course everybody thinks Angel has it out for their team, he is not only bad, he's confrontational causing more problems because he thinks the fans are paying to see him get into arguments.
Greg Gibson isn't getting enough hate in this thread. Talk about a confrontational jackass.
On the "six inches outside" calls, I still maintain they were never called with any uniformity. What did happen prior to Questec was a movement of the strike zone down and away from the rule-book designed zone. This happened, oddly enough, right around the time that the league expanded and offense started jumping (1993ish.) Umpires started calling pitches low and away strikes, but ceased to call high strikes altogether. At the time it was suggested that they were adjusting for the power surges by making hitters at least go out and around balls to hit homers. This benefitted pitchers like Glavine and Randy Johnson, but took away "going up the ladder" from pitchers like Kevin Millwood.
I can't remember - was he the jerk who was baiting Milton Bradley in San Diego, or was that a different jerk?
See, this is why we need more stabbings. There are so many horrific umps that we can't even remember them all. You have one, just ONE bleed out on the field and they'd get the message.
???? Umpires over the past decade have been outstanding in comparison to the prior two decades. The quality of umpiring nowadays is massively superior to what it was before Questec and the Umpire strike(one of the best thing to happen to baseball was the umpires failed strike)
And they're mostly confrontational ######## who go completely aggro on anyone who dare question them.
Did you see the debacle with Todd Tichenor earlier this year? The fact that we can sit here and name Angel Hernandez, Doug Eddings, Phil Cuzzi, CB Bucknor, Joe West, Greg Gibson, Mike Winters and on and on as embarrassments to their craft runs counter to the argument you make. There is no set of checks and balances for umpires.
That said, no umpire has ever caused a team to lose a game. Not even Don Denkinger or Tim McClelland.
and most of those named are the ones that survived the firing, the quality of umpiring has improved tremendously and even the confrontational nature isn't nearly as bad as it was before the strike. I do think this year confrontation seems to be up a little more than a few previous seasons. but the arrogance isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, it's not even close to as bad to be honest.
If they followed the rules he wouldn't need to lobby.
Yes, because Bobby Cox is actually lobbying for the rules to be applied fairly across the board. He and Mike Scioscia and incorruptible that way.
The Sox-Braves game yesterday was also pretty poorly called - it also was arguably the first time this year that the Red Sox couldn't put a reliever out there who would just shut down the opponent for an inning. The Red Sox were very lucky to win that game...
I think you meant carotid, as you'd need a long stick to hit the aorta from the neck and there would be a lot of digging around to get to it.
Okay, but for the record, I'm not opposed to a lot of digging.
I was worried about Sam earlier today -- lots of anger -- but it seems like he has found a much happier place now.
Here's wishing Pete Rose would have dropped a piledriver on Dave Pallone.
It has been sliding in that direction since Ron Luciano (1968-80), maybe before, since the beginning of his career is more or less coincident with my beginnings as a fan. He wasn't a bad umpire at all, but his histrionics had a "Hey, everybody look at me!" quality that is completely inappropriate.
I had an aunt who thought Luciano was great because he waved his arms a lot. She also thought Seiji Ozawa was a great orchestral conductor because he waved his arms a lot. I never met her longtime boyfriend but I imagine that he, too, waved his arms a lot.
*phredbird's head explodes*
I'm not sure.
Why does everyone where them?
This is not much better.
Also, sleep with one eye open at the invitiational.
well, like his big, booze drinking friend.
I'm a huge Maddux fan and even I was going to call BS on this. I looked at the game log (http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/FLO/FLO199710120.shtml) Maddux pitched a great game too and struck out 9 with 1 walk, 4 hits, and 2 runs in 7 innings. Then to Livan 15 Ks, 3 hits, 1 run. The think that got me is that Livan got 37 called strikes to just 18 for Maddux. That seemed an incredible difference but then on the other side Maddux had 63/86 (73%) pitches called strikes to 88/143 (62%). Among pitches that were not hit or swung at Maddux had a 18:17 strike:ball ratio vs Livan's had 37:52 ratio. I'm torn. I wonder how much of our memory is tainted by the helpless AB by Fred McGriff to end the game.
It was actually Game 5, In Game 6 Kevin Brown closed it up over Glavine. For comparison there were 28 and 23 looking strikes for the 2 teams in that game.
That would be Sam. He'll rough a guy up if necessary, but I'm not sure where he stands on stabbing umpires in the neck.
The great thing about this post is that neither of these men, "Bob Davis" and "Tim Merriweather", actually exists.
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