There was a similar call in the fourth game of the Twins/Tigers series in the last week of the RS.

The worst I've ever seen was in 1995, in a game between the Red Sox and Angels at Fenway. This is how I described it then:

For the second straight night, Larry Young embarrassed himself, making his case for being the most pathetic excuse for an umpire in Major League Baseball. This time, he botched a completely routine tag up by Cabrera who moved from second to third on a foul fly out to right. Trot Nixon jumped into the stands, caught the ball, exchanged some high fives, ran up for a beer and a helmet sundae, made a few phone calls, and was in the process of hitting on some ZooMass co-eds in the fifth row when Cabrera decided to leave for third, which he reached easily. The Sox appealed to second, claiming that Cabrera left early, and inexplicably, Young agreed. Two ejections later, the Sox were out of the inning.

The Angels won the game 3-0, so it didn't matter, but until these playoffs, it was the worst call I'd ever seen. He screwed something up the game before, too, but I can't remember what he did. I think I slept through that game.

Edit: Looking at the comments from my blog entry on the game before, Young screwed up a check swing call where Papi obviously swung and should have struck out. It cost the Angels a few runs when Ortiz went on to single.

Tim Mclelland makes Don Denkinger look like The Hubble.

Is the umpiring really worse than it is in the regular season, or is it that much more viewership and many more camera angles (and some great replays) amplifies an existing problem?

I think it's been far worse. Have the bad calls in the playoffs been any worse than we usually see in the regular season? Well, I don't see every game, obviously, but I don't recall seeing any regular season calls that were as bad as the Cuzzi call on the line drive, or the call last night. C.B. Bucknor's bad calls at first in the first game of the Angels-Sox series were pretty awful, too, but you see umps miss those from time to time.

But the bad calls in the playoffs have been more frequent, and it's not like they've just been replacing the garden variety bad calls (balls and strikes, bang-bang plays at first base, tag plays on pick-offs) with major errors. They're still making all of the garden variety bad calls too. It's like they've upped the ante in a very short period of time.

My point, Shredder, is that there aren't as many cameras in a regular-season production. So a Yankee/Angel game in August may not feature a replay angle as definitive as the one in which we all are familiar with the fair/foul Cuzzi play.

Cuzzi may blow it, but we don't notice.

Tim McClelland still will be a HOF umpire when it's all said and done, but let's face it: he screwed up BIG TIME last night.

How many umps are on the field? 6? How could not one of them see a fielder tag 2 players who are standing clearly off a base? There is no baseball situation short of there already being 2 outs where both of them are not out.

How in the world does the home plate ump not see that play?

If I'm the plate ump, I'm setting up at home in case there's a play at the plate. Getting into position, making sure I see the catcher's glove and the plate at the same time.

Cuzzi may blow it, but we don't notice.

I can't think of a baseball game I've watched in the last ten years or so that didn't have enough cameras to show if a ball landed a good foot into fair territory. In games I've watched there's enough cameras to show if a ball lands on the line or not. It's not like spring training games with only a high camera behind the catcher.

And yes, I did just tout a UMPIRE as a future HOFer.

Think of the angle and line-of-sight. You'd have to be lying down on the field two feet in front of the runner.

I refereed touch football for years. It's an endless succession of tag plays and trying to get into the right position to see the attempted tag and something else. I have tremendous sympathy in general for umps on tag plays but none for McClelland's lack of work.

Tag up play though shouldn't be that tough. You need to be down the line just to the inside (best angle for any fair/foul call without getting in the way) and pick up the runner with your ... well it's not peripheral vision, but I think you know what I mean.

I don't know about the worst umpired postseason, but that Cano / Posada fiasco was easily the worst single call I've ever seen in my life, including Little League. And I'm 165, so you know I've seen a few.

The call on Swisher leaving 3rd was awful. You absolutely, positively cannot get that call wrong, since the penalty to the wronged team is so high. If there's any ambiguity in your mind, you let it go.

All those calls were crapistic, but in my lifetime I've seen a couple of similar calls to "Swisher left third too soon".

But to see a player be tagged while standing clearly off the base and making no attempt even to reach it, and to call him "safe"---IMO that takes the all-time booby prize, regardless of context.

The only explanation I can think of is that he got confused with the situation where BOTH runners were standing on the base, in which case only one of them would have been out. Which doesn't remove the dumbness factor one iota.

Or hell, maybe he thought this was one of those "unofficial rules" situations, and that Posada and Cano "could have stepped on third if they'd wanted to." I wouldn't put anything past that umpire.

If Cano were on the base, and Posada runs back through it, isn't Cano out for passing the runner anyway?

might very well be the worst call of all time.

Can you say Don Denkinger.

Can you say Don Denkinger.

I can, but it's not remotely close to McClelland's gaffe, regardless of the outcome.

If Cano were on the base, and Posada runs back through it, isn't Cano out for passing the runner anyway?

No, once Posada possessed third after the double and the pitcher goes to deliver his next pitch, Posada cannot regress from 3rd base. If they both occupy 3rd, the preceding runner has right to the bag.

The only explanation I can think of is that he got confused with the situation where BOTH runners were standing on the base, in which case only one of them would have been out. Which doesn't remove the dumbness factor one iota.

That's basically the excuse. It's very, very lazy umpiring.

On the play with Cano and Posada, I thought Cano was on the base. I was waiting for two players to be on the base, and when there was never the situation where both of them were on the base at the same time. When he tagged Cano, I thought Cano was on the base, and when Jorge touched the base and continued and tagged Posada out, I thought Posada was out.

I mean, I'm pretty lazy, but I'm also not at the "top" of my profession.

Is the umpiring really worse than it is in the regular season, or is it that much more viewership and many more camera angles (and some great replays) amplifies an existing problem?

On at least two calls and probably three, definitely, absolutely worse than in the regular season.

I can see how McClelland might have gotten crossed up by the play. But my only explanation for Cuzzi's "gaffe" is that he had Vegas money on the game.

You guys. First the neighborhood call is not used on the DP pivot, and everyone complains. Then McClelland decides to use the neighborhood call for runners, and everyone complains.

How in the world does the home plate ump not see that play?

Do we know that he didn't?

There have been three or four comments to that effect. Where were the other umpires? Couldn't someone overrule McClelland?

The answer is that, by rule, no umpire can change another umpire's call. What can happen is the umpire making the original call can ask for help, and a manager can try to prevail upon him to do that. But the umpire doesn't have to ask for help, and another umpire can't just walk up and say, "Tim, you blew the call." (See Rule 9.02(c). Check swings are the specific exception.)

AJ Pierzynski just called Tim McClellan "the best umpire in all of baseball" on TV.

AJ Pierzynski just called Tim McClellan "the best umpire in all of baseball" on TV.

Are you surprised? I thought he had a pretty good reputation.

The answer is that, by rule, no umpire can change another umpire's call. What can happen is the umpire making the original call can ask for help, and a manager can try to prevail upon him to do that. But the umpire doesn't have to ask for help, and another umpire can't just walk up and say, "Tim, you blew the call." (See Rule 9.02(c). Check swings are the specific exception.)

I know that their calls can not be changed by another umpire, but can another ump walk over and say: Hey Tim, I suggest you ask for my help on this one *hint* *hint*, or is that not allowed by the rule? very frustrating

Is the umpiring really worse than it is in the regular season, or is it that much more viewership and many more camera angles (and some great replays) amplifies an existing problem?

I think it's a little of both, actually; while the calls this particular postseason have been so uniformly terrible, they come on the heels of maybe the worst-umpired regular season I can recall seeing. It's like for the last seven months MLB umpires have secretly been working for the Pac 10.

AJ Pierzynski just called Tim McClellan "the best umpire in all of baseball" on TV.

I'd have thought he woulda touted Eddings.

The answer is that, by rule, no umpire can change another umpire's call. What can happen is the umpire making the original call can ask for help, and a manager can try to prevail upon him to do that.

This seems like a pretty simple fix: give managers the right to "challenge" one call a game that forces the umpires to confer and come to an agreement. There's no need to look at replays, so it should a minimal time drag on the game, and the umpires won't be forced to double-check with their colleagues on every single close play.

Of course the original umpire's ego might prevent them from ever changing a call, but it's better than nothing. Umpires have at least been more forthcoming about admitting their mistakes after the games, which is a nice change from the Rich Garcia days.

The standard to which umpires are held deteriorated after sandy Alderson left the MLB offices for San Diego. By the accounts I am familiar with, he relished the opportunity to make sure the umpires got the call correct and was able to use his USMC-bred powers of persuasion to their full extent.

And one more - if I thought CB Bucknor was a terrible umpire in the IL in the mid-1990s, how does he matriculate to the MLB? Baffling.

While I agree with the criticism of his specific calls last night, McClelland is one of the best umpires in the business, so I can forgive a bad night from him. I can't forgive MLB for assigning some of the other guys (Layne and Scott in this crew, Hallion and Holbrook in the NLCS crew), who AREN'T deserving, and who show it every time they go out there.

I'm not a fan of using instant replay for calls that affect the flow of the game (catch/trap calls and the like), because then the umpires have to make an educated guess as to what *might* have happened had the call gone the other way and I don't like the idea of them having to reconstruct likely outcomes. I can see using it on the McClelland plays last night, because those didn't really affect where any other runner might have ended up.

-- MWE

McClelland being involved now is actually a good thing for anyone who wants to see something done, if that something isn't instant replay. Before yesterday, an argument could have been made, when the issue inevitably comes up in the offseason, that what was needed was something like better training or something else equally vague that didn't address the issue. With somebody like McClelland having blatantly blown two calls out of nothing other than poor performance, things are different. He *is* one of the best in the game, and so MLB is going to have to look more deeply into what in God's name is going on. Unless they use the (in my opinion, crappy) salve of instant replay.

And yes, I did just tout a UMPIRE as a future HOFer.

If I had a vote for HoF, which I obviously don't, but if I did, all I know is: Spit on umpire. ###### up 2 calls. No, and no.

This isn't a replay or no replay issue. I wish the media would stop clamoring for replay. What they need to clamor for is better umpiring which can be done without the use of technology.

I thought he had a pretty good reputation.

Exactamente. (Emphasis added.) Now that is shot forever.

McClelland is one of the best umpires in the business, so I can forgive a bad night from him.

I'm tellin' ya. He looked sick. There's something wrong with the guy. Watch for an announcement.

The only good thing about this fiasco is that none of the bad calls came when the Angels were batting. CC mowed them down, fair and square, and the Yankees scored more than enough uncontested runs.

The result is that we are having a discussion over umpiring and what should be done, and not a massive dispute over how their actions turned around a game or a series.

The result is that we are having a discussion over umpiring and what should be done, and not a massive dispute over how their actions turned around a game or a series.

For the umpires to throw that game to the Angels, they would have had to call everything thrown by Scott Kazmir a strike, even if it was 2 feet off the plate. Anything caught by an Angel on a bounce an out, and anything hit by A-Rod would have had to have been called foul. It was only slightly less lopsided than C.C.'s former teammate taking down the Dodgers.

I'm on board with getting instant replay involved. Wanting better umpiring is great but that's kind of like wanting a more efficient government, or bankers who are less greedy. I'm sure the umps feel like crap when they see their horrible calls up on the jumbotron. Just give them a chance to use the technology to get the calls right.

This isn't a replay or no replay issue. I wish the media would stop clamoring for replay. What they need to clamor for is better umpiring which can be done without the use of technology.

Emotionally I am with you. But there is something extremely wrong when the umpire is on the field defending his call and everyone else in the world can clearly see he is wrong.

This isn't a replay or no replay issue. I wish the media would stop clamoring for replay. What they need to clamor for is better umpiring which can be done without the use of technology.

This. A thousand times this. The problem with instant replay is it will make things much, much, worse by parsing the details even finer. There is no doubt in my mind that the caliber of the officiating in the NFL both in terms of the actual calls and in terms of the interpretation of the rules has become worse because of instant replay.

What I would like is a revision of the rulebook to make things less precise and hence easier to call. Instead of trying to figure out whether the foot hit the bag first or the ball the glove, lets go back to tie goes to the runner. Instead of trying to figure out if Swisher left a nanosecond early, how about unless it's obvious call him safe.

Look at how trying to split the atom on these calls has ruined the NFL. If we're outside playing catch we have no problem defining whether someone caught a ball. The NFL, on the other hand, has to invent ridiculous rules to define what is, and is not, a catch. The result is a rulebook that is impossible to enforce and a league in which the most important factor in determining winning and losing is what arbitrary calls the referee makes.

Or go back to baseball. We have a problem with determining what is, and is not, a homerun. For those of us who played baseball in parks with fences this is a preposterous notion. Instead of divising an absurd replay system that is designed to fail to figure out this perplexing question why don't you build a ####### fence that makes it so this never happens.

In all of these cases the problem is a result of increasing complexity. Instant replay doesn't simplify or clarify these issues it complicates them by adding the number of factors that need to be considered. If the problem is complexity you don't make it any better by making things more complex.

I know I'm fighting the dying of the light on this one but there is no way that instant replay will make baseball better. This isn't even one of my anti-technology arguments. I'd be in favour of a pitch clock and automated balls and strikes. Both of those innovations would simplify the job of arbitration. Instant replay, on the other hand, is a ########### of epic proportions for the lame brained looking for an easy fix.

If I had a vote for HoF, which I obviously don't, but if I did, all I know is: Spit on umpire.

That is also the attitude of Roberto Alomar, who WILL have a Veterans Committee vote pretty soon.

There may be another reason for such a bad umpiring.
This is the first season of replay. So, they aren't in total control anymore. Furthermore, that idiot told Jeter "he doesn't have to tag you, it's enough that the throw beat you", which alerted the public and mass media that really, umpires have their own rules, which aren't in the rulebook. Next came those blown calls in postseason, specially that fair/foul ball (it was in 5 - 6 inches; trying to judge where the ball has hit from such a close distance while following a ball and fielder, instead of being focused only on the line is really hard, specially for those who don't call them all the time - foul/fair judges should never be so close to the actual play, and should be trained to focus on the line, which would mean they wouldn't be able to see if the ball hit the fielder). On top of everything, they are negotiating a new CBA. It seems to me that the umpires are nervous. And that means they are thinking and analyzing everything, instead of reacting instinctively. I have seen plenty of games in European football where referees became unsure. From that point, they would have greater chance getting the calls right just by sitting at the sidelines and flipping the coin than actually doing their job. The best thing would be to just say to themselves "f- everything, I'll call them as always, and if I miss, well, you can't get them all", but instead they are overanalyzing and getting more calls wrong.

CC mowed them down, fair and square, and the Yankees scored more than enough uncontested runs.

Of course, one could make an argument that the Yankees might not have scored those uncontested runs if Layne hadn't been calling an extremely tight strike zone (which was floating around a bit, too).

-- MWE

I don't see how a regulated replay system would slow down games. Aren't they already slowed down by managers screaming at umps for minutes on end? Take those two-to-five minutes of argument and replace it with a three-minute replay system or something. If the umps can't make a decision on the replay within three minutes or whatever, the play stands as called. Limit it to out/safe calls and tag-ups, maybe a couple of other things. It could be worked out.

Tim McClelland is the home plate umpire who nullified Brett's "Pine Tar" Home run in 1983, and was the umpire who tossed Sammy Sosa for the corked bat.

What umpires have good reputations nowadays?

Of course, since MWE is the only one I have seen contesting the strike zone, one could make an argument that he is full of crap.

Aren't they already slowed down by managers screaming at umps for minutes on end?

Yeah, but that's fun.

Have to say I rather enjoyed seeing the pompous jackass, McClelland, squirm in front of the microphone.

Of course, since MWE is the only one I have seen contesting the strike zone

The Angels were contesting it a lot in the early part of the game.

-- MWE

The Angels were contesting it a lot in the early part of the game.

The Angels contest every strikezone. Nobody whines more than Scioscia. He has no shame. He'll complain about not getting the call on inside pitches. I always wonder how I he can see from the side whether a ball is inside or over the plate. It's physically impossible. The sad thing is that I'm quite sure it works.

Nobody whines more than Scioscia. He has no shame.

Speaking of whiners....

Even if the strike zone was fine, it was weird that the home plate ump had to ask Napoli to crouch lower. It was like someone was making a point about the observer effect. I know neither Scioscia nor Napoli made a big deal about it, but something about that seems spiritually wrong, changing the actual play of the game to facilitate (often wrong anyway) umpiring.

It has been reported that MLB is changing up the umps for the WS because of the blown calls. But it's confusing. Did we know who the umps were gonna be and now they're different. Or are they just different than what we thought. Or is MLB just saying they're changing 'em to look as if they're doing something. Who understands what's going on?

The World Series umps are chosen from among the 24 who were selected to handle the LDS round. I believe this is the first announcement of the Series lineup. Apparently, the point is that guys who screwed up during the four LDS series were bumped from consideration (An AP story mentions Bucknor specifically). And they decided not to include any WS first-timers, although that ignores the fact that it has been some of the most veteran umpires doing the up-screwing.

According to SI.com, C.B. Bucknor got dumped from the WS. I'm sure no one will complain about that.