Let's Go To The Video Tape

I'm sitting here watching the Angels vs. White Sox ALCS game and, after the garbage that went on in the second game where, obvious to everyone but the umpire, the ball did not hit the ground, the umpires blow yet another call. Steve Finley is up with runners on first and third and one out, he swings and hits the ball to shortstop and they get him in a double play. Inning over. But on closer inspection, it should be bases loaded with one out.

When Finley hit the ball, I said to my father, "They won't double up Finley." But they do. On the replay, they show him slowing down and pointing at home, but the umpires do nothing. Then they show another replay of Finley swinging the bat and you can clearly see his bat hit the catcher's glove mid-swing. Catcher's interference should have been called and Finley should have been given first base on the error by the catcher.

Is it me or are umpires blowing calls left and right these days? Maybe it has something to do with the firing of almost all the umpires a few years ago, and replacing them with minor league umps. Perhaps they are just not up to Major League standards. Or perhaps it is time to institute some form of instant replay.

Don't get me wrong. I am generally a baseball purist. I don't like the DH, I don't like the continual expansion of baseball, thereby adding more jobs and promoting players who would never make the majors except as 40-man roster additions, and a few days ago I would have told you that the instant replay was not for baseball. After all, the umpires are players, too. But recently there has been a rash of horrible calls in important games. Calls that changed the course of the game and in some cases the series.

From the bad call against the Yankees where Robinson Cano was penalized for the second base "neighborhood" play, to the aforementioned strike three passed ball, to tonights garbage, the evidence is inescapable. Umpires either need to re-read the playbook, open their eyes and watch the game, or some type of instant replay needs to be instated in, at the very least, post-season play.