All pardons if you didn’t stay up to watch the end of the Rockies-Phillies game. Even those who go to bed before 11 on the west coast would have probably missed the pivotal play, to say nothing of the hardy souls on the east coast who had to stay up well past 2:00 to see Brad Lidge close the game out. Playoff baseball: it’s awesome for insomniacs!
(As with ringworms, the circles indicate problem areas.)
If you missed the crucial play, then, allow us to recap. With one out and a man on third in the ninth inning, Chase Utley fouled a pitch off his leg, then ran to first anyway, where the throw beat him. For his trouble, Utley was declared safe and the Phillies scored the winning run on a sacrifice fly by the next batter, Ryan Howard. You may think we’re using deliberately partisan language out of some deep bias against the Phils, but no - evidence shows that Utley had no business standing on first.
As you can see from the above photo (taken from this FLICKR.COM photostream), Utley’s ball can be seen next to his leg, directly above a cloud of dirt behind home plate, where his foul ball hit the ground. For more evidence that it wasn’t a more permanent scuff, you can see from this picture that the cloud dissipates shortly thereafter.
After home plate umpire Jerry Meals inexplicably rules the ball in play, pitcher Huston Street fields the ball and throws out Utley. At that point, first base umpire Ron Kulpa (we hope his middle name is “Mea”) declares Todd Helton’s foot off the bag. Picture time? Picture time.
With Utley’s foot on the side of the bag, there’s simply no way his shoe can completely obscure Helton’s without Helton’s still making contact with the base. Further, you can plainly tell Helton has control of the ball, and Kulpa never disputed that Utley beat the throw.
Another angle? Why, sure.
(Click on picture for a larger version, via BIG LEAGUE STEW)
Sadly, we can’t embed the play, because MLB.COM is where dreams go to die. You can watch it here, complete with bewildered live-action commentary from the announcers.
It’s also complete with a full admission from the umpires that they blew the call. Granted, we don’t know if it cost the Rockies a win - that’s too much of a leap in logic, considering the game was tied at the time and it wouldn’t have been a third out - but it significantly swung the balance of the game in the Phillies’ favor, and the Phillies ended up winning because of the run that was scored afterward. That’s a problem.
The worst aspect is that we demonstrably have the technology to review these calls. We just don’t do in baseball, unlike every other major sport. It’s pretty obviously time to make that change.
1:33 pm on October 12th, 2009
well reasoned, adam j. baseball needs to modernize itself more than a little bit nowadays.
1:51 pm on October 12th, 2009
The most tragic thing for the Rockies is that the Philly runner ends up at 3B with less than 2 outs…directly resultant of that play. Hence later scoring on an out.
The absolute arrogance of the MLB umpires goes far beyond that of the zebras in other sports imho.. These umps and the (MLB) game definitely require technical oversight! Specifically NOT on balls and strikes, but on all the other bang bang play areas such as what happened in this specific instance.
2:30 pm on October 12th, 2009
This is becoming more common place in baseball and it sucks. I can understand the outcry for instant replay, but with the time issue it will never happen.
2:47 pm on October 12th, 2009
I have no interest in the outcome of this game (NW suburban White Sox fan). I think Helton’s foot could be extended vertically, be obscured by Utley’s leg and yet not be on the bag. Perhaps Greg Brady has a picture from a better angle?
3:26 pm on October 12th, 2009
Petros - We just added another angle. It’s a bang-bang play, but Helton was on the bag.
3:35 pm on October 12th, 2009
I’ve watched it like 20 times and Helton still looks off the bag to me. However, ball clearly hit Utley, so there’s that.
4:54 pm on October 12th, 2009
Big deal, the strike zone in Stairs’ at bat clearly showed all pitches were outside and he got jobbed. Where’s the post on the terrible strike zone? It goes both ways here kids.