Sunday, September 17, 2006

Why Baseball Gods? Why?

Baseball is a funny game. How many times have you seen a blown call or a miscue turn into a big inning? If you're like me, you've seen it happen all too often, and it never seems to work in your team's favor. Case in point:
The Yankees and Red Sox were tied at 2. Coco Crisp is on first with 2 outs. Ron Villone throws over to first and they have Crisp picked off. Crisp "runs into short right field" to avoid Wilson's tag, and gets back to the bag safely. The 1B ump, who I think they said was a rookie, fails to call Crisp out for running out of the baseline, which he so obviously did. There's your 3rd out. During the same plate appearance by Mark Loretta, the home plate umpire failed to call Loretta out on strike three looking. There's your 4th out. But instead, there's 2 on with 2 out. Next thing you know, the Sox pick up 4 runs, none of which should be up on the scoreboard. It's frustrating. It happens a lot. It's part of the game. It's baseball. What can you do? I'd be a lot more worked up over the bad calls if this game had any meaning whatsoever. I was listening to the afternoon game yesterday on the radio. It was the ESPN feed. The announcer, Dave Campbell maybe, I can't remember, it could have been the other guy, put it so eloquently. "The Red Sox are playing for pride." That made me laugh whole-heartedly. These games aren't that exciting. The Sox are playing the "lite" version of the Yankees. No Jeter. No Abreu. No Giambi. No Posada. Last night: No Damon. No Cano. No Matsui. Torre is obviously doing everything he can to keep everyone fresh for the postseason. Everybody knows the Yankees are winning the East. Everyone knows the Yankees are the best team in the AL, and as of yesterday, they're tied for the best record in all of MLB. As nice as it would be to clinch the division this weekend versus Boston, it's not do-or-die. Well, at least not for the Yankees anyway.
Cleveland was fun yesterday. I got my autographs (Jeremy Sowers and Jim Bunning) and my wife go a stamp she's been looking for. We were hoping to see the Tribe win, but it wasn't meant to be. Kind of like the Red Sox making the postseason.
Peace, love and Pinstripes.
J-Boogie

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