Quote of the Day: “What a marvelous moment for baseball. What a marvelous moment for Atlanta and the State of Georgia. What a marvelous moment for the country and the world. A Black man is getting a standing ovation in the Deep South for breaking a record of an all-time baseball idol.” Vin Scully after calling Hank Aaron’s 715th homerun against the Dodgers.
Video of the Day: FVin Scully’s classic call of Gibson’s homerun in the 1988 world series. I have watched this over 50 times and it still gives me goose bumps 34 years later.
The sports world lost two icons within a matter of days. Earlier in the week it was Bill Russell, and yesterday it was Vin Scully, the voice of the Dodgers, the MLB game of the week, and countless world series and playoff games.
He was the master of silence. At the biggest moments he shut up and let the action on the field speak for itself. Despite broadcasting Dodgers games for over 60 years, he was not a cheerleader for the Dodgers. He focused on the moment in time. He had no tricky or catch phrases. His call of Henry Aaron’s 715th homerun, Kirk Gibson’s dramatic homerun in the bottom of the ninth inning in game one of the 1988 World Series, Billy Buckner’s error in the 1986 World Series, Don Larson’s and Sandy Koufax’s perfect games are legendary. More importantly, he made every game and every moment feel legendary. He had a way of broadcasting that made you feel you were part of the game. We in Detroit were blessed to have Ernie Harwell, while all of baseball had Vin Scully.
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The loss in yesterday’s Republican primary of first term congressman Peter Meijer, is a blow to centrist, independent thinking Republican’s who had the audacity to not support former President Trump in his second impeachment trial. Western Michigan has now lost two centrist Republican congressman with the defeat of Meijer and the retirement of longtime congressman, Fred Upton. The divide between parties keeps getting greater and greater as more and more extremist and hard liners are getting elected. Negotiation and compromise will become a thing of the past. I win you lose will be the only acceptable outcome.
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The NCAA is not on my list of favorite organizations. They are focused on money and power. Women sports and non-revenue sports are not important to them.
Their true colors were front and center last year during the NCAA basketball tournament. As you recall due, to Covid-19, the entire tournament took place in a single city for the men and a single city for the women. The discrepancy in workout and training facilities between the men and women were like comparing the difference between a major league baseball team to a JV girls softball team. It was an embarrassment.
Now it has been brought to my attention, that Hartland High School senior Eliana Bommarito, who is a four-time state champion and two-time national champion female wrestler will have no place to wrestle in an NCAA four year school. Eliana just won her second junior national championship in the 225 lbs. weight class. Unfortunately, the highest weight class for NCAA and NAIA women wrestlers is 195 lbs. Junior colleges allow a maximum of 235 lbs.
If Eliana was a male wrestler, she would be heading to Iowa, Michigan, Ohio State, Oklahoma State, Penn State or some other national powerhouse. Those are expected destinations for a two-time national champion and four-time state champ. Because of the NCAA’s archaic treatment of women athletes, they have not recognized that there are great women athletes who weigh more than 195 lbs. Instead, Eliana, will be taking her talents to Indian Hill Community College in Iowa, where she will be able to compete for two years.
The NCAA needs to wake up.
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I had to laugh when I read that Tiger manager A.J. HInch was upset with a call that went against the Tigers in their extra inning loss to the Minnesota Twins. Hinch claimed the Minnesota Twins runner should have been called out for Runner Lane Interference, on a play in which the Tiger catcher threw wild to first base as he was trying to get the batter-runner going to first base on a tapper out in front of the plate. Hinch claimed the runner had to have been on the fair ball side of the line, when the throw was made, thus not allowing the catcher a straight throw to first base. According to Hinch, the runner should have been called out for RLI and all other runners should be returned to their base at the time of the pitch. Unfortunately, the plate umpire who is responsible to make the call didn’t agree with Hinch. RLI was not called on the batter-runner who was ruled safe at first base and all other runners were allowed to advance. Hinch went on to say about the RLI, “It’s the worst rule in baseball.”
Since I have not seen any replays of the play, I do not have an opinion of the call as to whether it was right or wrong.
In my experience as an umpire, there are two rules that I found were misunderstood by most players, coaches and fans. One is the understanding of what is considered the baseline when a runner is advancing to another base, and the other is RLI, both of which I always found easy calls to make.
RLI is a very simple rule. In laymen’s term, the batter-runner cannot be in fair territory for the last 45 feet between home plate and first base and cause a fielder to make an errant throw or prevent a player from catching a throw in an effort to put out the batter-runner.
In my opinion it is an easy call to make, providing you are paying attention. Unfortunately, the plate umpire is probably the only one paying attention. It gets further complicated because the base umpire is not influenced by the RLI. The base umpire makes the call that happened on the field without regard to RLI. This usually results in the base umpire calling the runner safe and then the plate umpire calling the runner out for RLI. Naturally, the offensive team wants to go with the base umpire’s call and does not agree with the plate umpire overruling the base umpire on a call that most coaches, players and fans have no idea what the rule is. In Hinch’s case, he didn’t understand why the plate umpire didn’t call RLI, because that can be the only explanation of the errant throw by the catcher. We all know catchers never make bad throws.
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Elections Matter. Pray for peace and tolerance. What are you doing to stop the violence and mass killings?
Orchid of the Day: Eliana Bommarito, for winning the female national junior wresting championship for a second straight year. See above story.
Onion of the Day: The NCAA, one more time. See above story.
Question of the Day: Can a two-party political system survive, when centrist are losing control of their party?