ONLY first base umpire Ken Kaiser knows for sure, but that looked like a make-up call in the ninth inning of World Series Game 5 yesterday. Some moments of
World Series less than classicFor better or worse, we see them all the time in football and basketball. Officials will make amends for a bad call by giving one back to the other team. It's easy to throw a flag for a phantom hold, or give a guy a foul on a love tap because the officiating in those sports can be very subjective.
But there's no way to hide a bad call in baseball, especially in the World Series, where there are more cameras than umpires.
I can understand a major league umpire making a mistake now and then (even though it is harder to become a big-league ump than it is to make it as a player), such as the call at first that Kaiser missed in the eighth inning, giving Moises Alou an infield single.
But that's not all. Alou then tried to steal second, slid past the bag, and was tagged. He was called safe again, this time by second base umpire Ed Montague. Replays clearly indicated an incorrect call. Alou eventually scored what turned out to be a key run -- they're all key in a one-run outcome.
Now, if you saw Bip Roberts' infield single to start the Indians' ninth-inning rally, do you really think Livan Hernandez missed the bag? Hernandez said he might have, but the cameras again indicated differently, that the Florida pitcher touched the base with his foot, and long before Roberts crossed it.
COULD umpires who are chosen because they are the best of the best make three mistakes in two innings?
It's possible. But even if you're conspiracy weary, you have to admit that's probably not what happened.
Looks like two blown calls and a make-up.
The umpiring isn't the only less-than-classic aspect of this Series. Pitching and defense have taken an early vacation. The games have a slow-pitch softball flavor, with lots of longballs.
Does that mean we're watching bad baseball? Depends on how you look at it . The contents are half-frozen, but I like to view the glass as half full.
Although I'm a fan of pitchers' duels, I find these games just as exciting.
One of the reasons I don't care for golf much is that the players complain so much about the playing conditions. Baseball can be that way at times.
BUT one of the good things about this World Series is that the players have whined little about the cold weather in Cleveland the last three games.
Though balmy conditions might have produced prettier baseball, there's something heartening about the teams battling rough weather as well as each other.
Interestingly, some of the same folks who say baseball is boring because there's not enough scoring are complaining about this Series.
I'm reminded of a couple of friends who told me they didn't enjoy the Padres-Cardinals doubleheader last spring at Aloha Stadium. Boring. Not enough scoring, they said.
I couldn't stop laughing. They're soccer coaches.
Speaking of big-league ball here, no confirmation yet on whether there will be more games at Halawa next year. But one way to avoid snow flurries at the World Series would be to hold it at Aloha Stadium.
Seriously, though, how about an NFL game here?
A matchup between Hawaii's team of the past and present, the San Francisco 49ers, and Hawaii's team of the present and future, the Denver Broncos (with Jason Elam and Maa Tanuvasa), would sell out faster than a Rolling Stones concert.
Start me up!
Dave Reardon is a magazine editor and freelance
writer who has covered Hawaii sports since 1977.
He can be reached via the Star-Bulletin or
by email at dreardon@hmsa.com.
