Umpires worst nightmare

Umpire Jim Joyce emphatically called Cleveland's Jason Donald safe - AND THE REST IS HISTORY!!!

THE VARIOUS ANNOUNCERS CALLS OF THE PLAY & THE POST-MORTEM FROM MLB.COM
http://mlb.mlb.com/video/play.jsp?content_id=8629733

"It was the biggest call of my career, and I kicked the (stuff) out of it," Joyce said, looking and sounding distraught as he paced in the umpires' locker room. "I just cost that kid a perfect game."

This has got to be an umpire's worst nightmare. Influencing the outcome of a GAME on the basis of a bad call would be bad enough. Jim Joyce cost the Tigers Armando Gallaraga a chance at history and a place in the Hall of Fame. WOW!!!

I don't understand how in that situation, with two outs and a perfect game going, that ANY close play at first would not be SOLD as an out as emphatically as the umpire in Don Larsen's World Series perfect game sold strike three to end that one. Has anyone questioned that call? Anyone calling for instant replay based on that call? SELL THE CALL!!! It didn't even need selling, it looked like a clear out.

Maybe instant replay is the answer here. And in the white-hot crucible of the World Series.

But this isn't the answer to the recent twin Joe West debacles. Lately, Major League umpires are violating that age-old adage that the best thing anyone can say about umpires or referees after the game is that they didn't really notice them.

Now, in Joe West's defense, I will say that if anyone of us had a job supervisor or quasi-quality control inspector on our own jobs that had the personality of an Ozzie Guillen, Lou Piniella or Joe Girardi, we might act like the southern end of a north-bound horse, but Joe West brought a lot of this on himself by being a publicity whore. That's what he was fined for, more than the perception of bad calls, Hawk Harrelson's opinion aside. West doesn't seem as if he enjoys being out there anymore.

I know with Joe West, it's "The Show" and all, but when I do games during the season, the hardest problem I have is making the adjustment from having to deal with testosterone fueled 15-18 year-old young men and their equally daffy baseball coaches one night and 10 and under girls the next night, who are trying to influence the outcome of the game by singing songs with lyrics that end with something along the lines of "Oosh-ka, ash-ka. Oosh-oosh-kah, ash-ka".

On second thought, maybe that's just what a Joe West needs right now, more games on his schedule where the players are trying to influence the outcome of the game by singing "Oosh-ka, ash-ka. Oosh-oosh-kah, ash-ka". Its worth a try. The ball's in your court Commissioner Selig.



"Oosh-ka, ash-ka. Oosh-oosh-kah, ash-ka, indeed!!"