So new Chief Justice John Roberts says he wants to be an umpire. Fair enough, I guess. I just hope he does a much, much better job than the umpires of tonight’s playoff game between the Chicago White Sox and the "Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim" (undoubtedly the stupidest name for a team in baseball history).
We pick up the action with the game tied 1-1, bottom of the 9th, nobody on, 2 outs, 3-2 count. Batter swings at and misses the next pitch, which the catcher clearly catches before it hits the ground (as several slo-mo replays showed). Batter, apparently thinking that the ball had hit the ground before being caught, then runs to first, but catcher, correctly thinking he had made a clean catch, didn’t try to throw him out. Correct call: batter is out, and we go to the top of the 10th. Actual call: catcher didn’t catch the ball before it hit the ground, so batter is entitled to take first base on the swinging third strike. (This "taking first base on strike three" rule is one of the weirder ones in baseball; details for the obsessive are here at rule 6.05.)
So, after a lengthy argument between the umpires and the Angels’ coach (picture a lawyer screaming in John Roberts’ face and kicking dirt on his robe), the White Sox put in a pinch runner who promptly steals second, and then scores on a base hit by the next batter. Result: White Sox win as a direct result of the blown call by the umpires, and the Angels can’t do a thing about it.
Moral: umpires sometimes make bad calls; bad calls have real consequences, and those affected by the bad calls can’t really do much about the error – in baseball, as in law, there is no appeal to the instant replay. So, Mr. Chief Justice, try to get the calls right, willya?
