Althouse: Baseball sleight of hand.

May 25, 2013

Baseball sleight of hand.

(Thanks to Lem for sending me that.)

25 comments:

SteveR said...: You have to give the Ranger players credit for playing it cool.; 5/25/13, 1:33 PM
Chip Ahoy said...: Pantalones del fuego. I thought baseball was supposed to be honest.; 5/25/13, 1:41 PM
Tim said...: 3-6-1 scored as a 3-6-3?

That's great!

And, as I Giant's fan, I'll always love the Rangers, as they went down to defeat for the Giants' first World Series Championship in San Francisco.; 5/25/13, 1:44 PM
Expat(ish) said...: @chip - Baseball is like NASCAR not like golf.

-XC; 5/25/13, 1:49 PM
Baron Zemo said...: In Boston getting head means that they bring the tuna fish can with Ted Williams stuck to it to the game.; 5/25/13, 1:50 PM
Baron Zemo said...: Oh and one more thing.

Boston Sucks!; 5/25/13, 1:51 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Gratuitous much Zemo?

You remind me of Trooper.; 5/25/13, 2:04 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: The first base ump looks at the bag and listens for the sound of the ball hitting a glove... any glove.; 5/25/13, 2:07 PM
ricpic said...: Well at least this ump, awful as he is, didn't cost a pitcher a perfect game. That honor goes to Jim Joyce who wasn't justifiably homocided by Armando Gallaragos but should've been.; 5/25/13, 2:09 PM
Original Mike said...: I don't understand the confusion. It was obvious from the get go that the pitcher caught the ball.

Are hockey refs umping that game?; 5/25/13, 2:10 PM
Jay Vogt said...: Bad call, but umpires are trained to listen for the catch and watch for the foot to the bag. Can't watch two things at once.

This time it didn't work.; 5/25/13, 2:13 PM
Dante said...: I don't understand the confusion. It was obvious from the get go that the pitcher caught the ball.

What I understand about how umpires decide whether the ball was caught before is they look at the runner and listen for the sound of the ball hitting the glove.

You can't look at both, you know. It also took special angles to see what actually happened.

Not that I know a damn thing about baseball, but I know a guy who did both umping the college level and referees for the NFL.; 5/25/13, 2:16 PM
Dante said...: Oops, Jay beat me to it. Well, two people saying the same thing makes it that much more likely to be correct.; 5/25/13, 2:17 PM
edutcher said...: If the pitcher caught the ball while he was touching the first baseman and the first baseman was touching the bag...?; 5/25/13, 2:18 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: Story goes that a first baseman used to hit the glove before the ball got to him to trick the umpire into making a favorable call.

Baseball lore.; 5/25/13, 2:18 PM
Chip S. said...: As Lem said, the ump called it in the standard way.

OTOH, expanded use of instant replay can't get here soon enough.

That call was blown like Derek Jeter in Mike Francesa's car.; 5/25/13, 2:22 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: That reminds me... didn't Roberts say SCOTUS where like baseball umpires?

Except worst... the Supremes take months to get it wrong.; 5/25/13, 2:23 PM
Lem Vibe Bandit said...: That call was blown like Derek Jeter in Mike Francesa's car.

That's about as inside as baseball gets.; 5/25/13, 2:25 PM
Chip S. said...: Francesa's a big fan of small ball.; 5/25/13, 2:30 PM
Bob said...: Lem and the others are correct. Umpire Ron Luciano in his book The Umpire Strikes Back detailed how an umpire calls an out at first base: you watch for the foot striking the bag and you listen for the ball hitting the glove, and call it according to which happens first.; 5/25/13, 2:41 PM
Original Mike said...: "You can't look at both, you know. It also took special angles to see what actually happened."

I'll grant that the ump didn't have the same angle we did, but the pitcher was the one who walked away with the ball!; 5/25/13, 2:56 PM
Big Mike said...: Lem and Jay are partially right. But I thought the umpire was supposed to complete the play by looking in the first baseman's glove to verify that he held onto the ball.; 5/25/13, 3:31 PM
Unknown said...: Hard to blame the ump when it seems like three sets of announcers also got it wrong until they saw the replay.; 5/25/13, 5:03 PM
tola'at sfarim said...: bad call, yes. But shouldnt there be some honesty on the parts of players? In basketball theyve started fining for flops, in football theres unsportsmanlike conduct. Is there any punishment that can be levied on the pitcher in this case for blatant cheating?; 5/25/13, 10:47 PM
tim maguire said...: On the video, it seemed obvious from the start that the pitcher caught the ball, I couldn't beliee it when the umpire called him safe.

I read the umpire strikes back where Luciano talks about the seeing/listening technique, but he goes on to talk about how first basemen slap their gloves to create the impression they've already caught the ball (btw, "what you can get away with" has always been a part of baseball).

There are three other umps out there, what were they doing at the time?; 5/26/13, 5:28 AM