One more thought on the play that cost the Angels Weds:

Maybe a simple rule change is in order, where a ball in the dirt is not the criteria for keeping a batter alive on a third strike, but rather control by the catcher is.
In Weds' instance, there is no doubt that Paul had control of the ball, whether he caught it cleanly or trapped it is irrelevant.
The ball did not go past him , either as a passed ball or wild pitch. There is a catcher's box, make the rule that if the ball goes out of the box or that if the catcher isn't in control of the ball (i.e., can't find it), it's a live play. At that point, it doesn't matter if the ball hits the ground 2 feet in front of the plate, if the batter swings and the catcher fields it in the box, yer out, siddown, grab some pine.
Seriously, anybody who swings at a ball in the dirt doesn't really deserve a shot at getting to first anyway, do they??

Here's a few, if Hippie will uncurl his clutching fingers from them:

Indeed I second that one. Pass me a beer willya already?

There usually isn't. I love that they leave it all on the ice, especially in the playoffs. The NHL playoffs are THE sport to watch as nothing compares to the player intensity, not even the SuperBowl. When an official can determine the outcome of a game due to a wrong or bad call, something has to change. In the NHL, Rome lives!!!!

A grand idea! Let's boot the refs out of the NFL while we're at it, and bring robots into the NBA. That would be an improvement.

The only officials who allow the frikkin' players to play are those in the NHL, especially in the play-offs. They have a better understanding of their sport than their ticky-tak wussy-footed counterparts. Unless someone's head is in the net, they don't call it. As it should be. No blood, no call.

Please, no high-tech sensors in the game. Might as well take the umpires out of it completely.

It's a game and it's not perfect; it's not the game's fault that millions (of $) are literally riding on the swings of the bat.

Peer review is much better. The umps who get it right stay in the game. The umps who don't have a clear strike zone (and the players know who they are) are out.

There are many relatively simple (these days) technological things that could be done to ensure correct calls other than instant replay.
For instance, is a pitched ball over the plate or not?
...

No, IR doesn't ensure they'll get it right, but it gives them an added chance to do so. IR has its own limitations i.e. camera angles, obstructions, technical inadequacies, lighting, bad framing, etc. And yes, the human element does not guarantee what actually happened on the field is what will be adjudicated in the form of correct calls. But it does provide another impartial layer of the possibility of getting it right.

We've all seen clearly irrefutable evidence to overturn or confirm a call on the field and have it misinterpreted or called incorrectly anyway. But all in all, I'd rather have it than not. NFL & NHL both use it.

NBA? Well, that's an entire mess all its own and the officiating is the main reason I NEVER watch a regular season game and won't even stop on the channel until late May and June. Then at least the higher caliber of the playoff game rids us of having to watch perennially lousy teams like Golden State, Denver, and a bunch of others. The refs in that sport are 99% dreadful and the personal bias is nowhere more evident than in that overly popular sport. That coupled with the archaic and silly free throw, the endless fouls in the last two minutes, the phantom calls and the whistled disruption of the rhythm of the game make it, for me, completely unwatchable.

But please, ask me what I really think.

runner hit by batted ball with bases loded = out but batter credited with hit?

FC is not a hit.

But thanks for the article, I'll read it shortly.

Sorry...I put in the scenario beloW:

Three singles to load the bases and then three fielder-choice plays at home plate? Or don't those get scored as "hits"?

Very good! You got the first 5. There's one more possible hit...

I can see that I needed to stipulate that you have to describe a scenario for these hits. Six is right but it would be a bigger fluke than last night's debacle.

And for our purposes here, "hit" means official scorer calls it a "hit," not just "batted the ball somewhere."

5 - if first two are picked off. then 3 more to load bases. Next hit scores a run. Infield ball and thrown out at home would be ruled fielder's choice - not a hit. Yes?

Rule-book trivia:

What's the most hits a team can get in an inning without scoring?

Six?

I'm sure I'm wrong.

What do I win if I'm right, though?

Terrible call, reversed by the ump himself, and yet another reason MLB has got to come into the 21st Century, kicking and screaming, if need be, and institute instant replay.

Bad calls should not be allowed to change the outcome, or potential outcome, of a game, especially a playoff game after these teams have already endured a far too long and sluggardly season to get there.

He was out. Everyone knows it. Everyone except those nincumpoops who are paid far too much to make the right calls, that is.

White Sox beat Angels on ump's screwup. And catcher's. And pitcher's. Does baseball need replay? No!

Oct. 13, 2005 | Let's get this out of the way first: Baseball doesn't need instant replay.

The way Game 2 of the American League Championship Series ended Wednesday night is the kind of thing that leads, in other, lesser sports, to demands for video review. I haven't heard a lot of talk about it so far, but one online poll shows a slim majority in favor of replay review. These people are wrong.

Instant replay would have solved nothing Wednesday night, and it would pollute and bog down a perfectly fine game if it were adopted in response.

What happened Wednesday was that the Chicago White Sox beat the Los Angeles Angels 2-1 on a big screwup by someone. Also on a complete game, one-run, five hitter by lefty Mark Buehrle that will be little noted nor long remembered. The ALCS is tied 1-1.

Depending on your point of view, the blame can be divided however you'd like between home-plate umpire Doug Eddings and Angels catcher Josh Paul. Eddings and Paul both helpfully denied that they'd done anything wrong. I think both of them can shoulder some blame.

I'm also with Angels manager Mike Scioscia, who was angry over the ninth-inning call but said his team didn't do enough to win anyway.

In the other game Wednesday night, the St. Louis Cardinals beat the Houston Astros in Game 1 of the National League Championship Series by jumping on Houston starter Andy Pettitte and then hanging on to win 5-3. Game 2 of that series is Thursday night in St. Louis. The Angels and White Sox are off.

The White Sox were batting with two outs and the bases empty in the bottom of the ninth Wednesday with the score tied 1-1 when A.J. Pierzynski swung and missed a Kelvim Escobar splitter for strike three. The ball dived down out of the strike zone and Paul caught it just before, or just after -- a key question -- it hit the dirt.

Eddings, the umpire, signaled by jabbing his right arm out to the side and then clenching his fist in front of him. What these two moves signaled is a source of dispute.

Pierzynski, after following through his swing, instinctively juked to avoid a tag by Paul. If the ball had hit the dirt before Paul caught it, he would have been required to tag Pierzynski or throw to first to record the out.

On any third strike that's low, the catcher routinely tags the batter, whether the ball hit the dirt or not, just to make sure. The home-plate umpire, looking over the catcher's shoulder, has a tough angle to see whether the ball caught the ground, so the standard move is to tag and remove all doubt.

The batter often makes a perfunctory move to avoid the tag, which is what it looked like Pierzynski was doing. Everyone is saying he started walking back toward the dugout, but that's not what happened. He juked, then, upon realizing Paul wasn't trying to tag him, he took off toward first.

Paul had started to trot toward the Angels' dugout, as had his teammates in the field. Paul rolled the ball to the mound just as Pierzynski took off for first. Eddings, his mask still on, watched the whole play and made no further signal, though he took his mask off as he watched Pierzynski run up the line.

Pierzynski reached safely as the Angels stood around dumbfounded. An argument ensued, of course, with the umpiring crew huddling and finally deciding that the ball had hit the ground and Pierzynski was entitled to first base.

This all would have been forgotten had Escobar retired the next hitter, Joe Crede, but you knew that wouldn't happen. After pinch-runner Pablo Ozuna stole second, Crede lined a game-winning double off the left-field fence.

So who screwed up? Eddings, by blowing the original call? Paul, by not tagging the runner whether he thought he caught the ball cleanly or not? Eddings again, by not making a clear signal?

We'll talk about those two, but let's not forget Escobar for grooving an 0-2 pitch to Crede for the game-winner.

Replays were pretty inconclusive about whether the third strike to Pierzynski bounced, which by the way is one of many reasons instant replay would be a terrible thing.

The others, which we've learned from the NFL: It would slow down the game, turn a human endeavor into a technocratic one, and change the way the umpires actually call the game, turning them into timid functionaries who tailor their calls to make sure they remain reviewable.

It looked to me like Paul caught the ball cleanly, especially on the view from a camera on the first-base side. But I can be talked into seeing a bounce.

An unscientific poll by the Chicago Tribune, the White Sox's hometown paper, had readers saying the umpires blew the call by nearly a 3-2 margin as of mid-morning Thursday. A poll at ESPN.com, also unscientific, had 77 percent saying Paul caught the ball cleanly.

I also think Paul heading straight for the dugout speaks volumes. There's no reason for the catcher to try to spoof the ump, fake him out, in that situation. If the ball hit the dirt, it's the easiest play in the world to tag him or toss the ball to first. There's no need for deception.

Still, Paul, despite his postgame comment -- "It's not my fault. I take no responsibility for that whatsoever" -- absolutely screwed up by not tagging Pierzynski as a matter of course. If your mitt touches the ground, tag the batter. High school stuff.

Paul's in his 10th professional season. He may not think what happened Wednesday was his fault, but you can bet money he'll never fail to tag a batter on a low third strike again.

But I think the big screwup was Eddings' unclear call. He defended himself after the game by saying the jab to the right meant "swing and a miss," the clenched fist meant "strike three," but not necessarily "you're out." Using an umpiring term, he said, "That's my strike three mechanic, when it's a swinging strike. If you watch, that's what I do the whole entire game."

The clenched fist meaning "strike three" but not "out" is evidently news to everyone who's ever played the game. Current and former players have been unanimous in saying that to them, the clenched fist is the signal for an out.

Asked if it's ever been an issue that most people interpret his strike signal as an out signal, Eddings said, "No, it's never been an issue until now."

Well, it's an issue now and it needs to be fixed. And not with instant replay! The same unscientific poll at ESPN.com asked if readers favored using instant replay for on-field calls, as distinct from ball-strike calls, and a slim majority, 51.5 percent to 48.5, said yes. They overwhelmingly said no on balls and strikes.

What needs to happen is that baseball has to mandate clear hand signals that everyone understands. Umpires all have their individual styles of calling strikes and outs, and that's fine to a point, but there has to be clarity about what means what because almost all of an umpire's signals happen during action and can affect the outcome of the play.

Paul and others have said umpires usually say, "No catch, no catch" when a ball hits the dirt on strike three. Umpiring supervisor Rich Reiker said that the play continued because Eddings hadn't said, "Batter's out." This shouting business is fine as a supplement, a courtesy, but it can't stand alone.

Umpires can't rely on verbal signals. In a loud stadium, how are the first baseman and the pitcher, who could have teamed up to throw Pierzynski out Wednesday had they realized what Eddings was ruling, supposed to hear the umpire say, "No catch"? There has to be a hand signal for everything, and they have to be uniform, or at least universally recognizable.

Eddings shouldn't be singled out as a goat here. He may or may not have blown a tough call, which is just the way the ball bounces. And he's not alone in having a set of signals whose meanings are not always clear.

But the coming offseason would be a good time to fix this problem, before another team is forced to admit after a big win, as Chicago's Paul Konerko did, that "There's no question it was a screwed-up thing."

"You kind of feel like you got away with one," Konerko said. "I don't know what to say other than we'll take it as kind of a freebie."

Fair enough. But that's enough.