Well, there's just nothing fair about that. (Bill)
Venting time: the evil, evil White Sox just "won" the most embarrassing, disgraceful game baseball has seen since the pine tar incident some 25 years ago.
If you care you've probably seen it, but for no particular reason, here's what happened. Lovable sociopath A.J. Pierzynski strikes out to end the ninth inning. The pitch is very low, but Angels catcher Josh Paul catches the ball in the air, meaning the play, and the inning, is over. As Tim McCarver (who I really hate to agree with) points out, if anybody knows whether or not the ball hit the ground, it's Paul. And he has no reason to pretend; if it did hit the ground, all he'd have had to do was reach out and tag Pierzynski.
The umpire makes the signal indicating that it was a swing and a miss, and then pumps his fist, indicating--no matter what anybody else tells you--that an out has been recorded. It's the same motion that every umpire makes on every uncontroversial swing-and-a-miss strikeout on a pitch that's well out of the strike zone. So Paul gets up and tosses the ball toward the mound, and the rest of the Angels begin to jog off the field, as they all should, since the inning is over and all.
Then--or sometime while all this is happening--Pierzynski, who had started to walk toward the dugout, suddenly turns and sprints toward first. Nobody tries to throw him out, since a) the inning is over and b) the ball is sitting by the mound 20 feet from any Angel, since the inning is over. But the umpire, for no reason that can possibly be explained, says that Pierzynski is safe at first. Even though the inning is over.
And oh, yeah, the inning was over. The inning was over. The damned inning was over.
The rest of it kind of seemed inevitable: the pinch runner for Pierzynski steals second, then scores on a Joe "stupid ugly mullet head" Crede hit off the wall. Pinch runner scores, White Sox win.
And all the while, the inning is over.
Ugh. That umpire--in fact, all five umpires on the field--should be fired. Tonight. Or at least fined within an inch of their, um, solvency. And the White Sox should never win another postseason game...but that's not so much because of what happened tonight as because they're evil. And that whole Black Sox thing.
If you care you've probably seen it, but for no particular reason, here's what happened. Lovable sociopath A.J. Pierzynski strikes out to end the ninth inning. The pitch is very low, but Angels catcher Josh Paul catches the ball in the air, meaning the play, and the inning, is over. As Tim McCarver (who I really hate to agree with) points out, if anybody knows whether or not the ball hit the ground, it's Paul. And he has no reason to pretend; if it did hit the ground, all he'd have had to do was reach out and tag Pierzynski.
The umpire makes the signal indicating that it was a swing and a miss, and then pumps his fist, indicating--no matter what anybody else tells you--that an out has been recorded. It's the same motion that every umpire makes on every uncontroversial swing-and-a-miss strikeout on a pitch that's well out of the strike zone. So Paul gets up and tosses the ball toward the mound, and the rest of the Angels begin to jog off the field, as they all should, since the inning is over and all.
Then--or sometime while all this is happening--Pierzynski, who had started to walk toward the dugout, suddenly turns and sprints toward first. Nobody tries to throw him out, since a) the inning is over and b) the ball is sitting by the mound 20 feet from any Angel, since the inning is over. But the umpire, for no reason that can possibly be explained, says that Pierzynski is safe at first. Even though the inning is over.
And oh, yeah, the inning was over. The inning was over. The damned inning was over.
The rest of it kind of seemed inevitable: the pinch runner for Pierzynski steals second, then scores on a Joe "stupid ugly mullet head" Crede hit off the wall. Pinch runner scores, White Sox win.
And all the while, the inning is over.
Ugh. That umpire--in fact, all five umpires on the field--should be fired. Tonight. Or at least fined within an inch of their, um, solvency. And the White Sox should never win another postseason game...but that's not so much because of what happened tonight as because they're evil. And that whole Black Sox thing.