ML Baseball 2005 Playoff thread (1 Viewer)

[Ron Biles]

Yeah, that's what the Ranger players were calling him last year when they were having a very good year without him around. He lack's that 'team spirit' in the clubhouse and towards the fans. He did it in Seattle, Texas, and now New York.

 

[Shane Martin]

Well with the Yankees and Red Sox out of the playoffs playing golf, this thread will be on life support me thinks because hardly anyone will care

Angels take game 1. Fatigue has to be wearing down these guys at some point. Gutsy! Vladimir Guerrero has to show up sometime. He's been quiet at the plate.

 

[Patrick Sun]

I have no team to root for or against, so my interest has waned quite a bit. All I caught of the ALCS game 1 was the 9th inning where the Angels closer stepped off the pitching rubber 15 times, worried about the runner at first base with 2 outs in the inning. That was a big yawner.

 

[george kaplan]

Well as an Angel fan, this is the most I've cared about baseball since 2002. As long as the Angels keep winning, I'll be excited. If they should get knocked out by the White Sox, I probably won't even know who wins the world series.

 

[RobertR]

Plenty of people will care (there's a LOT of excitement in Southern California), but maybe not post as much. Red Sox and Yankees fans seem to be more talkative when their teams win.

 

[ThomasC]

I'll be rooting for Chicago, since they haven't won a World Series since 1917, and I hate the Angels for beating the Giants in 2002. I don't care about the NLCS.

 

[Shane Martin]

I meant as far as HTF members were concerned.

 

[Casey Trowbridg]

I'm pulling for the Angels and the Astros.

I hate St. Louis. I have a friend that's a White Sox fan, but I don't know that I want her to be that happy.

 

[EricW]

i wonder if they'll change that rule that says wildcard teams can't play the division winners of their own division in the first round? that would have ended up with a red sox/yankees series (though it would be weird since the final regular series was that this year).

i also favour an all-home series for the team that plays the wildcard. or at least a 2-1-2.

 

[Doug Miller]

I should get some kind of award for not bagging on ARod, or starting a new "Why I Hate ARod" thread.

Doug

 

[george kaplan]

Complete and utter bullshit. The worst umpiring I've seen this year. Horrible.

 

[Joseph S]

If there is a reason for protest rules, this is clearly the case. He not only caught the ball, but also saw the ump call him out. This sort of crap is why Bud Selig is a laughing stock. Worst call since "Knobby told me so" from Tim T'cheater.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Perhaps Socsia should have taken his team off the field when the guy wound up on 1st.

 

[James L White]

What would that acomplish? The umps would just call them back onto the field

Yes the call was wrong but it did NOT lose the game for the Angels they still could've retired Crede

 

[Joseph S]

Yes, it did. They got the three outs required by the rule book. The umpire declared the third out. End of story. Whether or not they "had a chance" to make a fourth out is beside the point.

 

[george kaplan]

I woke up this morning, and while I was still pissed, and still think it's a horrible call, well umps are human and they do their best - right?

Well after watching the umps news conference, I'm more pissed than ever. Every single on-air commentary has agreed that the ball was caught. Everyone. It is clear that it was caught. So, the ump is asked if he saw the replay. Yes, he says, and he still thinks the ball was trapped. Plus, the entire umpiring crew is making defensive, weak, excuses for what went on. If the ump had sacked it up, and said, "out there I thought it was trapped, even though the replay showed otherwise", then I'd be forgiving. But to lie in the face of evidence he was wrong is pathetic. It's one thing to make an honest mistake on the field, but to try to cover it up afterward is just low.

Hell, even the White Sox know the umpire screwed up. If there was even the remotest chance that he was right, they'd have his back.

Konerko: "I feel for them. There's no question is was a screwed-up thing. You kind of feel like you got away with one. I don't know what to say other than we'll take it as kind of a freebie."

Rowand: "We caught a break. We'll take it any way we can get it."

Crede: "It was a weird situation. I was already thinking about who was coming up for them in the next inning."

Doug Eddings needs to be reprimanded, not so much for flubbing a call, but for blatantly lying about it to try to cover his ass. If Major League Baseball wants to send a message to the players about how they should accept severe penalties for steroid use, they should start by showing that they're going to implement severe penalties for lying about umpiring errors that turn big games. Eddings should not be allowed to ump any remaining games this postseason, and if he is, then that just proves MLB doesn't care if an umpire makes a wrong call and then lies about it. It's not the wrong call, it's the bald-faced lying when evidence to the contrary has already been shown to you. Such a man can't be trusted. And you're going to let him ump (and possibly screw up), more postseason games?

 

[Steve_Tk]

We need reviewable plays.

Just like Houston's 9th inning Homerun the other day. The only person that could clearly see if the ball hit the line was Andruw Jones, not some umpire 100 feet away. They got the call right, but it still should be quickly reviewed to make sure.

 

[Rich Romero]

White Sox are gonna take this series in 6 anyway.

 

[george kaplan]

That may be. Hell, they might have won last night legitimately if the ump hadn't fucked up. But that's besides the point. The call was botched.

Looking at this more carefully, Eddings has now moved in my estimation to total asshole status. He made claims in the interview yesterday that his fist up motion wasn't an out sign, and that's what he did whenever the ball was in the dirt. But if you look back at a ball in the dirt on Bengie Molina earlier in the game, he doesn't make that out sign. The man is a certifiable liar. Nothing in sports pisses me off more than liars.

And why is it that no one in sports can man up and admit anything. I had given the White Sox too much credit for admitting that the call was botched. Now, A. J. Pierzynski has moved into asshole territory. Watch the play. He strikes out and walks toward the dugout. He's out and he knows it. But now, he's claiming in interviews that he beleived that the ball was in the dirt the whole time. Asked why he didn't immediately start for first base then, his response is "I don't have to. I can walk as far towards the dugout as I want before running to first." That may be true, but it doesn't answer the question of why you would go any steps towards the dugout if you thought the ball was dropped. A. J., has decided to not tell the truth. I'm not sure why though. I understand why Eddings lied, he was covering his ass. But A. J. did nothing wrong, so there's no reason not to admit that the call was wrong. He's either sucking up to the umpire, or else he's trying to legitimize an illigetimate win. I know this - in everyone's mind (except Sox fans), if the White Sox do win the world series this year, it'll be with a big time *

 

[Haggai]

I don't think it'll end up being that big a deal, asterisk-wise. The Jeffrey Maier home-run fiasco in the '96 ALCS helped the Yankees to win that game, and we all remember it as a horribly botched call that benefited them, but I don't think anyone goes around saying that their '96 WS win really has an asterisk beside it.