[Sigh] Do We REALLY Want To Be Part Of Major League Baseball??
[October 13th] -- It doesn't bother me at all that umpire Doug Eddings made the wrong call. After all, from his vantage point, his "call" was based on an impression more than solid evidence. To virtually every baseball fan, A.J. Pierzynski swung and missed the ball, Angels catcher Adam Paul plucked it out of the air before it touched the ground, Eddings "rang him" with a tight fist in the air, and that was that.
MLB, and the umpires, are better at "spinning" then anyone living in Washington. At that says something.
Boo to the other umpires on the field, who backed up Eddings 100%. Boo to the umpire supervisors who said that their equipment showed the ball "moved" at the last minute as Paul caught the ball. I guess that the umpires have better equipment then ESPN, Fox and thousands of other still and video photographers. Had they said, "We think Eddings made a mistake, but it was one of those plays that could have gone either way," fans and writers would have grumbled for a day and then it would all have been over. But by using their "Watergate" defense, MLB and it's minions seem as guilty of a coverup as Haldeman and Erlichman.
I fully expected umpire supervisors Rich Reiker to say, "Do you believe ME or your lying eyes?" Rich, baby: even Chicago fans and sportswriters aren't backing your boy Eddings up. Ozzie Guillen said he "didn't see what happened." Pierzynski sheepishly said that "I really don't know what happened ... I just ran."
Boys, for years, Major League Baseball and the Soviet Union were the only entities that really believed that a "lie oft told becomes the truth." The Soviet Union died 15 years ago.
Get the idea, Bud?