Friday, October 8, 2010

Is this really still a sport?

Let's start off with some headlines from sports pages around the country....
UMPIRE MISCUES SCARRING MLB POST SEASON

QUESTIONABLE UMPIRING COSTS BRAVES

BLOWN CALLS TAKE DOWN TWINS

THE HUMAN ELEMENT 1 BRAVES 0

CONTROVERSIAL CALLS KEY TO RANGERS VICTORY

UMP MISCUES THREATEN MLB'S LEGITIMACY

CONTROVERSY REIGNS ON DAY 2 OF POST SEASON
Yeah. I'm pretty sick of it. It's no wonder baseball lost it's "national past time" moniker years ago. It's now become a world wide joke.
Giant, Yankee, Ranger fans don't seem to mind. But just wait, your turn is coming.
If it wasn't for that horrendous umpiring last night, the Braves and Giants would still be playing in inning 57. And that's not even taking into account the rather, uh... Giant friendly strike zone. But I'll leave him alone for now. That idiot at 2nd base deserves all of the wrath.

What 2nd base umpire makes a call at 2nd standing between the pitching mound and 1st base?????

I love how The Sports Network (Canada's ESPN) kept on calling that blown call as the "Human Element" that cost the Braves the win. In reference to Selig's insistance on retaining the Human Element and not using replay.

Baseball has joined the ranks of Pro Wrestling as a joke sport in the eyes of the world,  only not as entertaining. Congrats Bud. Job well done.

5 comments:

night owl said...

Perhaps we should take all of the humans out of the game and let every activity be performed by robots who will do things exactly as we want them done. Then maybe we will be satisfied ... or not.

I don't think the umpiring has been any different than in any postseason ever. It's just that people (re: the media, mostly) are obsessed with this topic and will beat it to death until they get what they want.

Watch what you wish for ...

Sharpe said...

Yup, the media likes to focus in on one thing and beat it to death.

There will always be something wrong, or not go right - always has been.

It's funny because in football the joke among my circle of friends is if the replay conclusively shows it should go one way, the refs always seem to find a way to go the other.

I'm also of the "careful what you wish for" opinion

dayf said...

I wish for blatantly wrong calls that are immediately obvious to everyone watching the game on TV to be corrected.

It's funny that one blogger who has been beating the instant replay story to absolute death (http://sullybaseball.blogspot.com/) is oddly silent on a blown call when it helps out his team.

Don't wag your finger at me and bemoan the loss of the human element. Humans are incompetent, biased, irrational assholes who make loads of mistakes on their best day. Get the fucking call right, it ain't that damn hard.

SIXTYfeetSIXinches said...

Great post. Hope the Braves can recover. It cost the Tigers against the Twins in game 163 last year and now this year with the Braves. Not sure how much more I can take!

flywheels said...

I felt bad for Conrad. He finally makes a good play @ 2nd and they call the runner safe when he easily was out. At least Ankiel came through in the end!