Saturday, October 26, 2013

Crying In Baseball?

Tonight's world series game 3 was a classic.  The game was great, the ending controversial and the crying was downright pathetic.


Come'on baseball world, you know the rules.  There's simply no crying in baseball!

The St. Louis Cardinals won the game on a bad throw to third base by the Red Sox catcher period.  Sure their third baseman was called for obstruction of the base path and the throwout at home was nullified.  Sure its a tough way to have a world series game end.  But come'on everybody, what do you want baseball to do, change the rules of baseball for the postseason?  Get rid of obstruction rules altogether?  Major league baseball made the right call; a body was in the path of the base runner obstructing his route to the next base.  

There was no hesitation on the umpire's call. There was no doubt that the base path was not being obstructed, whether intentional or unintentional doesn't matter.  Stop all the tears baseball fans, NOW!

I love baseball even more for having a rule like this, and more so for having the guts to make the call and stand by it.  The umps did the right thing.  True baseball fans should not feel cheated out of a good game. Sorry Boston Red Sox, you have much more than an obstruction call to blame this loss on.  Even a return of The Curse is being thrown out their as a reason the play even happened.  But we must give the St. Louis Cardinals credit for making the hits, pitches and plays to win this game.

Final Score (game 3)
Red Sox 4
Cardinals 5

The rule can be found in the Official Rules of Major League Baseball, Section 2.00, Definition of Terms:

"Obstruction is the act of a fielder who, while not in possession of the ball and not in the act of fielding the ball, impedes the progress of any runner.

"Rule 2.00 (Obstruction) Comment: ... After a fielder has made an attempt to field a ball and missed, he can no longer be in the 'act of fielding' the ball. For example, an infielder dives at a ground ball and the ball passes him and he continues to lie on the ground and delays the progress of the runner, he very likely has obstructed the runner."

No comments: