Living in the Midwest, I don’t get a lot of opportunity to
watch the NY Met’s play ball. I grew up a Met’s fan back in the 70’s. To be
honest, it’s a hard life. Unlike Yankee fans, who always seem to have a seat at
the post-season table, Met’s fans have to claw, scratch and fight for every appearance.
Up until last night’s 7th inning debacle against the
Dodgers, the only thing that really annoyed me was the strike zone graphic
which threatened to drive me further into insanity than my kids have previously
done. Nothing says ‘WTF?’ better than a graphic that repeatedly shows a Ball
and a Strike, side by side and outside the strikes zone……Personally, I’d rather
they ditch the damn thing and let me go back to hating umpires for ‘imagined’
reasons. That was until the 7th inning.
With one man out and the count 1 & 2, and runners on 1st
(Chase Utley) and 3rd (Enrique Hernandez), the Dodger’s Howie Kendrick
connected for a hit up the middle against NY Met’s pitcher, Bartolo Colon. The
ball was fielded by 2nd baseman Daniel Murphy who tossed the ball to the SS,
Ruben Tejada. Tejada approached the bag, extending his foot out to ‘tap’ the
bag as he turned, preparing to throw to 1st base for the potential inning
ending double play.
In baseball, there is something called the neighborhood play.
The application of this developed because of the common practice of a sliding
runner colliding with the fielder at second base, risking/causing injury. On a
double play attempt, the fielder must throw the ball to first base, which would
generally require a step directly into the path of the incoming runner. On a
close forced out at second, a fielder often cannot avoid a collision while
completing a throw to first base unless he stays some distance away from second
base. For the sake of safety, umpires allowed fielders to score the first out
of an attempted double play without actually touching second base as long as it
appeared to be an out, i.e. the fielder made a clean catch, turn, and throw
near second base before the runner arrived. This allowed the tradition of the take-out
slide to continue while still providing a means of safety for middle
infielders.
Unfortunately for Tejada, the Dodger’s Chase Utley decided
to try and take him out, to prevent the double play. When I say take-out, I
mean take-out. I haven’t seen a hit that bad since the Cincinnati Red’s Pete
Rose went into NY Met’s Bud Harrelson in an eerily similar play. In fact, it
was in the 1973 NLCS. In trying to break up the double play, Rose went in high
and hard, elbowing Harrelson. Words were exchanged and then punches. What
ensued was a bench clearing brawl.
Last night, the brawl never came, because Tejada never got
up off the field, suffering from a broken right (Fibula) leg. Like Rose, Utley
came in high and hard. Tejada, who fielded the ball as he ran toward the base
reached his leg out to tap the base (the replay would later show that his foot
landed somewhere around an inch or two away). In doing so, his momentum carried
his body toward the outfield. At that
time he had his back to first base (and the runner) and was in the process of
spinning around to throw, when Utley came crashing in. To say it was a ‘slide’
would be a gross distortion of the sport I know. Utley never began to slide until he was almost
parallel with the base. Tejada, with his body twisted toward 1st and left leg
high off the ground, was slammed into, causing his body to flip up into the air
and come unceremoniously crashing down.
Utley was called out and proceeded to jog off the field,
leaving Tejada writhing on the ground in pain.
As you watch the replay two things are abundantly clear.
First, Utley had no intention of sliding into 2nd base. His path took him away
from the base and directly at Tejada. Second, Utley never even reached out to
touch the base. Replay after replay shows that he made no attempt to ever touch
the base.
As a result of the busted play, the Dodgers Enrique Hernandez
scored from 3rd and Kendrick arrived safely at 1st.
Had Tejada gotten up, play would have resumed with Utley
being out. However, as personnel tended to the injured Met, the Dodger’s took
the opportunity to watch the replay and challenge the call. The neighborhood
play is non-reviewable, however a ‘forced out’ is. I’m not sure which aspect of
the play the umps felt didn’t fit a neighborhood play, but the play was
reviewed for the forced out and the runner was determined to be safe, because
Tejada didn’t touch the base.
Now this is where it gets a bit fuzzy. Since the play was
reviewed for the ‘forced out’ and it was ruled that Tejada didn’t touch the
base, it was deemed to be an officiating
error and Utley was awarded the base, even though he never touched it. Why
was it determined to not be a neighborhood play? Good question, let’s go to MLB
Chief Baseball Officer, Joe Torre, himself a former player and coach.
According to Joe, who was asked to explain what basis
umpires viewed the slide as legal and not constituting illegal interference, it
was a “judgment play.”
I read the interview and I have to tell you that it looks
like a lot of back-pedaling, mumbo-jumbo,
political speak. In other words, MLB is engaging in a little CYA. See if
you can follow along with me.
First, we are told that Utley was out, which would have
fallen under the unreviewable neighborhood
play.
Then we are told that this “wasn't a neighborhood play,
because [Tejada] spinning around and then reaching for the ball and stuff like
that.”
So then that allowed the play to be reviewed for the ‘forced
out’ where the replay official in New York determines that Utley is safe,
because Tejada hadn’t touched the bag.
Only problem is that, aside from “spinning around,” in order
to throw to 1st, there was no “reaching for the ball and stuff like that.”
Tejada had control of the ball in his throwing hand the
entire time, even when he ended up on his back. He was attempting to pivot, in
order to throw to 1st to complete the double play, and that is
the neighborhood play. For anyone to claim, especially Joe Torre, that Tejada
couldn’t make the throw, is ridiculous. Don’t believe me, then you, like Joe,
need to go and cue up some Derek Jeter film.
I’m not claiming that Ruben Tejeda is Derek Jeter, but even
a broken clock is right twice a day. Maybe Ruben could have pulled off the miracle play that would have made this
game memorable for another reason.
What bothers me even more is that later in the interview,
Torre admitted that Utley could have been tagged at any time and would have
been out. Seriously, Joe? Your umps screwed up, calling out Utley, and now you’re
saying that some player should have just run down Utley, as he was leaving the
field, and tagged him out, even though they had all heard or seen him be called
out, and then they (the Dodger’s) couldn’t have challenged the call….. Wait,
this sounds like a scam.
You know what is bigger BS than this whole judgment / interpretation
nonsense? This: MLB Official Rule 7.09(E)
which states: If, in the judgment of the
umpire, a base runner willfully and deliberately interferes with a batted ball
or a fielder in the act of fielding a batted ball with the obvious intent to
break up a double play, the ball is dead. The umpire shall call the runner out
for interference and also call out the batter-runner because of the action of
his teammate. In no event may bases be run or runs scored because of such
action by a runner.
They say that some rules are “meant to be broken,” but
apparently some are also meant to never be
enforced.
For anyone who watched the play, it is abundantly clear that
Chase Utley willfully and deliberately interfered with Ruben Tejada by
attempting to break up the double play. Even Torre admits that, in his opinion, the
slide was late. Whether or not Tejada
could have made the throw is a moot point. Utley should have been called out,
as well as Kendrick, to end the inning. The Met’s would have retained the 2-1
lead.
The slide was egregious, even according to Torre who
admitted that he was still reviewing the film to determine whether to take action
against Utley. I guess it takes time to measure the outrage and determine the
appropriate MLB response.
In 2011, during an extra-inning game in San Francisco, Marlin’s
player Scott Cousins took a course slightly inside the third-base line and
initiated contact with Buster Posey, the Giants' franchise catcher and one
of MLB’s biggest stars, on a play at the plate. In the collision, Posey's leg
shattered and the Giants' season never recovered. It led to the adoption of MLB Rule 7.13 which states, in part,
that “a runner may not deviate from his direct pathway to the plate in order to
initiate contact with the catcher." Similarly, catchers are not allowed to block
the plate, unless they are in possession of the ball. If the runner violates
the rule, he's out. If the catcher does, the runner is safe.
One thing is for certain, if the shortstop’s name last night
was Derek Jeter, and not Reuben Tejada, Torre would be taking immediate action,
but then again, this is just the Met’s and not his beloved Yankees.
As for us Met’s fans, as the old Tug McGraw saying goes: “Ya Gotta Believe!”
