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elleng

(130,156 posts)
Wed Oct 30, 2019, 05:34 PM Oct 2019

The Great World Series Interference Debate

'The game simply halted, lost in one of those Talmudic debates that enthrall hardball devotees and mystify everyone else.

Somewhere in the long night’s journey into baseball that is a World Series game I turned my back on the leather-lunged fans who hung over a rail behind me and screamed ceaselessly, and I peered at home plate and tried to remind myself who was batting, which team was ahead and if it was really possible this Game 6 had just come to a dead stop.

I was seated approximately 440 feet from home plate in what the Astros euphemistically call auxiliary press seating. At least two-thirds of the outfield remained out of view. This lent a suspenseful quality to the evening, as fly balls went up and up and then disappeared. We auxiliary-seat sorts would cup our ears and listen for the sound of applause or moans to signal what might have happened.

A couple of reporters broke out binoculars; I thought to myself that an interplanetary telescope would have been of greater use.

This obscure status quo held until the seventh inning rolled round and the game simply halted, lost in one of those Talmudic debates that enthrall hardball devotees and mystify everyone else. Trea Turner, a fleet-footed shortstop for the Nationals, had hit a dribbler in front of home plate and committed the crime of running out of the baseline as he raced toward first base. As he lunged for the bag, his leg knocked free the glove of the Astros’ first baseman, Yuli Gurriel, who was himself positioned awkwardly. The ball rolled away, and Turner took off for second.

The problem, now, was that an umpire said Turner had interfered with the throw and called him out. Sweet outrage bubbled. Turner hopped up and down, coaches yowled and soon enough the umpires had strapped on earmuff-style headphones and placed calls to the baseball video review center in New York City. The umpires tried to raise Joe Torre, the Hall of Famer who moonlights as chief baseball officer.

Their failure to find Torre registered as deeply perplexing, as he was sitting in a field box perhaps 15 yards away. With the delay stretching on, Turner began to point at Torre in the stands and say loudly: “He’s right here. Just ask him. Why is he hiding?”

Torre, a laconic sort, sounded mystified too. “I guess what they must have done is try to call me,” he said.

We’ll return to these cogitations, which would leave social media aflame late into the night as warring schools of baseball-rule-book ideologues took to hurling footnoted insults at each other.'>>>

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/30/sports/astros-nationals-world-series.html?

Would post the whole story as I'm loving it, but I guess that's against the rules!!!

12 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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dem4decades

(11,244 posts)
5. He was on the base when the ball arrived. Personally thought it was a bullshit call, so did the
Wed Oct 30, 2019, 05:55 PM
Oct 2019

baseball gods too I guess.

brush

(53,477 posts)
6. You didn't notice his thigh knocked the first baseman's glove off his hand as the ball arrived?
Wed Oct 30, 2019, 05:59 PM
Oct 2019

That's runner interference.

brush

(53,477 posts)
10. Not at all the same situation. The call stood because it's in the rule book...no interference with..
Wed Oct 30, 2019, 06:48 PM
Oct 2019

a fielder when trying to field a ball. Running outside of the baseline falls under that rule.

brush

(53,477 posts)
3. Wasn't the runner supposed to be on the other side of the baseline?
Wed Oct 30, 2019, 05:46 PM
Oct 2019

Why was it such a big controversy?

You're coached as a player in that situation to if it's going to be close to throw at the runner in hopes of getting the call from the ump. That's what happened—runner interference, which wouldn't have been called had the runner been on the other side of the baseline.

kairos12

(12,817 posts)
12. A reminder of the quote
Thu Oct 31, 2019, 10:46 AM
Oct 2019

Baseball is either hard, or really hard.

The rulebook and umpiring contributes to that.

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