World Series Blunder

I waited for nearly twelve hours, a good night's sleep, before I weighed in on the debacle that was last night's World Series Game 3.  I still use such strong words because I feel the same way this morning as I did last night.  It's not emotion that's getting the best of me.  No, I pride myself on keeping a cool head most of the time.  Admittedly, I was incised.  Still am.  When the play occurred though, I was was shocked and said very little, and my patient wife might have confused my reaction with some sort of levelheadedness.

To make any sense of this for anyone who didn't watch/hasn't seen the replay/hasn't been on Twitter/has been in a cave the last twenty-four hours, here's what happened.  Tied at four apiece in the bottom of the ninth inning, the Cardinals have runners at second and third base with one out.  With the Boston infield drawn in, the batter, John Jay, grounds to second baseman Dustin Pedroia.  Pedroia fields the grounder and throws a laser home to catcher Jarrod Saltalamachia who easily tags out the base runner Yadier Molina.  The play worked to perfection for the Red Sox.  That is until the sports universe stepped onto its third rail.

Saltalamachia sees a play at third and unwisely wings what looks like a tailing two-seam fastball towards third baseman Will Middlebrooks.  Even if the throw had been on target, it would have been late.  The throw wasn't on target.  Middlebrooks dives for the ball towards the second base side of the bag and misses completely.  The ball hits the Cardinal baserunner, Allen Craig, in the arm and trickles into the outfield.  The baserunner then tries to get up out of his slide and run home, but Middlebrooks was laying in his path, having just dove for the ball.  The baserunner then trips over Middlebrooks, stumbles, then staggers home.  In that time, the left fielder grabs the ball, throws home to Saltalamachia, who tags out the baserunner easily.


The only problem is that the home umpire called him safe.  Or rather, he deferred the call to the third base umpire.

When the baserunner tripped on Middlebrooks, the third base umpire called an obstruction, which automatically awards the baserunner a free base.  Problem was that the St. Louis crowd was so loud at that very moment that nobody heard the call.

Crazy?  Absolutely.  Fair?  Hardly.

Yes, by the letter of the law, this was obstruction.  The third base umpire was more than justified to call this an obstruction.  The problem exists in the wording of the rule.  The wording suggests that as soon as the fielder no longer is part of the play, he must be out of the way.

First, there was absolutely no way Middlebrooks could have gotten out of the way.  More to the point, Middlebrooks wasn't even in the baseline!  Since he had dove towards second base to try to catch Saltalamachia's errant throw, the closest part of his body to the baseline was his shoes, and they were a good foot inside the baseline.

His shoes weren't what the baserunner tripped on.  Allen Craig tried to leap over Middlebrook's...middle.  A good three feet inside the baseline.  He simply couldn't get his foot over Middlebrook's butt.  Why was the baserunner trying to run so far inside the baseline?  If the baserunner runs to the pitcher's mound and crashes into the pitcher, would this be called an obstruction?  Obviously not.  Then the umpire would call him out for being out of the baseline.  So then where does the baseline end and the rest of the field begin?
There seems to be a lot of room given to the average baserunner when he rounds third and goes home.  His natural momentum causes him to round the base well outside the baseline.  There is no clear line here, and the baserunner was flirting with that line.  Now I don't for a second believe that Craig tried to go out of his way to trip on Middlebrooks.  I'm simply saying that Middlebrooks wasn't on the white line that is the baseline.  He was well inside the baseline.  That just happens to also be where Craig was at that very moment.

To make my second point, I must talk about balls and strikes.   All night long we saw an inconsistent strike zone.  A pitch at the beginning of the at bat would be called a strike, then with a 1-2 count, the same pitch, crossing the batter in the exact same spot as the first one would be called a ball.  FOX kept  putting up their computerized strike zone for the millions to see, and there was no doubt.  There was no difference in the two pitches, yet the home umpire would call it a ball.
Based on the CIRCUMSTANCE, he would make a JUDGEMENT CALL.  A JUDGEMENT CALL!  The letter of the law that everybody is using to defend the decision of the third base umpire concerning the obstruction law is now somehow up for interpretation with the home plate umpire when it comes to the strike zone?  One pitch is a strike once, and a ball in a different circumstance?  Why the latitude here but not the latitude at first base?
Or the better question is why not give that third base umpire the same opportunity concerning a specific situation like what transpired last night to sense the circumstance and make a judgement call?
The Boston Red Sox are going to come to the ball park tonight and play as if nothing happened last night, because that's what good teams do.  Maybe the play and the resulting loss will come back to haunt them.  Maybe they will reel off three straight victories.  Either way, Major League Baseball needs to look at this specific rule and allow for discretion when there is nothing a fielder can do to get out of the way.  To bring common sense back to the game.  MLB cannot allow for such judgmental hyprocracy.
If you're still not convinced, just imagine if this had been Game 7!