It was not my intention to write another Pulitzer-prize winning piece from the Texas Rangers’ home opener, but sometimes circumstances demand the attention from an independent-thinking member of the liberal elite media.
What happened in the bottom of the 10th inning of the Rangers’ 6-4 loss to the Colorado Rockies would normally call for the intervention of the U.S. government, but our elected officials rank behind the people who currently run MLB.
What MLB and its umpires did on Monday was nothing more than green-light the continued pillowfication of baseball.
No group in sports is more sensitive to criticism than Major League Baseball umpires, so they’re not going to want to hear any of this, but they make Big 12 football referees look good.
After the Rangers tied the game at 4 with a two-out solo home run by Willie Calhoun in the bottom of the ninth inning, Colorado scored twice in the top of the 10th.
The Rangers started the bottom of the 10th with Marcus Semien at second base, and leadoff man Kyle Seager struck out for the first out.
Catcher Mitch Garver walked, which brought to the plate Adolis Garcia.
His ground ball to short was tossed to Rockies second baseman Brendan Rodgers, who touched the base to beat Garver’s slide into second for the second out.
The throw to first base was wide, allowing Semien to score as Garcia moved up to second base.
But the Rockies then challenged that Garver committed “slide interference.”
The call was not handled in Arlington, but rather the league offices in New York City. MLB determined that Garver violated the rule in interfering with the fielder.
Garcia was ruled out, ending the game on a “double play.”
How very Texas Rangers.
Also, what an embarrassment to anyone who has ever played baseball. The ruling was an offense to the late Joe Morgan, the great Lou Whitaker, or even Rougned Odor.
“He was playing hard ball,” Rangers manager Chris Woodward said.
It wasn’t even that hard.
But that is no longer welcome in baseball, whereas crying likely is.
Garver’s slide was hardly malicious, nor did it pose any real threat to Rodgers’ knees, or physical well being. It was a standard baseball play.
He wasn’t exactly Ty Cobb sliding in spikes up with the hopes of disabling the second baseman’s ability to have children.
Garver slid well before the base; Rodgers felt some pressure but he was still able to pivot and make a clean throw to first base.
This ruling was essentially an overreach on an enforcement of the “Chase Utley Rule.”
In the 2015 National League playoffs, Chase Utley of the LA Dodgers took out NY Mets shortstop Ruben Tejada with a hard slide at second base that was a nasty attempt to break up a double play in a tight game.
Tejada suffered a broken leg as a result, and MLB implemented a new rule the following spring.
There is good, clean, hard baseball. And then there is dirty, low-down trash that deserves a fastball to the ribs the next time you’re at bat.
Utley made no effort to slide until he was at second base, and he deliberately made every attempt to collide with the fielder.
Utley did deserved to be called out, and then thrown out.
What Garver did was just a slide in a regular season game.
It may not even have registered as a particularly hard slide. It was just a professional baseball slide.
And yet he was called out.
He was called out not because of a bad rule, but because of an unnecessary enforcement of a rule.
He was called out because no group of referees/officials in sports loves to over-intervene more than a Major League Baseball umpire; they’re a group that never quite got over the fact that the fans in the stands aren’t paying money to watch them call balls and strikes.
The Rangers were livid with the call, justifiably so.
“That didn’t determine us from winning that game. We lost that game,” Woodward said, correctly. The Rangers had a 3-1 lead in the seventh inning.
“It’s more of a technicality at the end. New York made the call to call him out,” he said. “We have to walk away. You read the rule, and you can manipulate the rule to make it look like he disengaged with the base.”
He lobbied with the umpires after the game, but there was nothing they could do. It was MLB’s decision.
“I thought Garver was trying to make a baseball play,” Woodward said. “He was just playing baseball.”
Which is apparently no longer welcome.