Becoming Willie Randolph

[G-Fafif]

My 1,160th post made me Willie Randolph. And let me say the champagne indeed tastes sweeter as a result.

[Guest John Cougar Lunchbucket]

You're a winner.

[metirish]

All those years of posts on winning message boards prepared you for this, congrats.

[Fman99]

I've been being Tony Tarasco and the whole time I keep thinking about how I let that dopey Jeffrey Meier kid grab that home run ball over my head in the 1996 ALCS.

[nymr83]

worst play ever, it began the yankee dynasty

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

I've been Guillermo Mota and wallowing in my shame.

[Frayed Knot]

Some writer brought up that game just the other day in conjunction with the proposed move to instant replay for disputed HR calls.

The ump admitted he blew the call right after seeing the replay but maintains to this day that he doesn't think Tarasco would have caught the ball and so would have awarded Jeter either a double or triple depending on where the other umps said he was at the time of the interference.

iow, in this case (as we've seen many times in the NFL) the replay rule wouldn't have prevented an argument it just would have shifted the argument to a different topic.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The ump is covering his ass. Tarasco was back there.

[Frayed Knot]

Edgy DC wrote: The ump is covering his ass. Tarasco was back there.

I agree it should have been an out but that doesn't mean he does or that the reviewing judge (or whoever gets the power to overturn things) will either.

The point is that without replay it's easy to envision how having it would correct all sorts of injustices but in the real world it's not that cut & dried.

[MFS62]

You can have all the replays you would ever want, and the umps will still believe Clemens when he said he thought he was throwing a ball instead of a bat shard.

Later

[Guest Edgy DC]

Maybe, but the reviewing ump (a) doesn't have the same need to cover ass as the ump who blew the call and ( brings the criticism on himself if he does.

It's pretty encouraging when you look at how many absolutely just corrections have occurred by allowing umps to confer, including several under post-season pressure.

[Guest metsguyinmichigan]

Hell, Jeffrey Meier could have fallen out of the stands, pushed Tarasco over, dropped the ball, pick it up, built a sand castle in the warning track and get pulled into the stands by a hot dog vendor and the umpires in that case STILL would have called it a home run.

Remember, you're talking about Derek Jeter. "Yankee Magic" trumps all common sense.

[Centerfield]

Both the Jeter and Clemens plays are examples of umpiring at their worst. Not only did they blow the call, but they refuse to admit their mistakes and, instead, make asinine excuses.

The Jeter play is dumb. If Tarasco were not in position to make the play, he would have been moving. Had he thought it would hit the top of the wall, he would have jumped, hit Maeir, wherein the fan interference would have been obvious. Outfielders who camp underneath a ball and put up their glove to catch it nearly always do. I understand if he missed the play at the time, shit happens, but to insist Tarasco wouldn't have caught the ball after seeing the replay is just idiotic.

The Clemens play is even worse. It's bad enough to argue that any professional baseball player (or little leaguer, or any random person off the street) could ever mistake a bat shard for a baseball. But even if you buy this dumb excuse, you still have to justify why he threw it at Piazza in the first place. If Clemens really did think it was the ball, he wouldn't have over-handed it toward Piazza, he would have under-handed it toward Tino. For Clemens' excuse to make sense, you have to believe that he mistook the bat shard for a baseball, and then momentarily confused the rules of baseball and kickball.

[metirish]

This si from a certain blogger on a major sports site.

] Questioning Randolph's comments posted: Monday, November 19, 2007 | Feedback | Print Entry I went easy on Willie Randolph down the stretch, partly because I've always admired the way he carries himself, and partly because I didn't watch enough Mets games to criticize his bullpen maneuverings. But when I read something like this, I cringe ... Says Willie, "I felt all year long we didn't have that killer instinct consistently that we should've had. We had it at times when our backs were against the wall, and we did show some fight (the Mets went 8-2 after the first four-game sweep by the Phillies), but you have to be careful when you put your back against the wall, because you can't always get off that wall. In the end, that's (exactly) what happened." Randolph says he believed in his players' character right to the final game, confident they would right themselves, and admits now the faith was misplaced: "I definitely gave them too much credit. I was looking for them to reveal to me that they were ready to be champions, but they showed me they weren't ready. "It's a tough thing to look at in retrospect, but that's the truth." They weren't ready to be champions? What about 2006, when mostly the same group of players came one or two swings away from being champions of the National League? Did they get un-ready between then and September of '07? I should mention that Randolph didn't completely throw his players under the bus. Later in the same piece, he talks about what he should have done differently down the stretch, and what he'll do differently next year. I just don't see what good it does now, to question the character of his players. When I was at Kansas, Larry Brown coached the Jayhawks. When they got beat, afterward the first thing he'd say to the media was, "We got outcoached." As a fan, I wasn't satisfied by that answer. I wanted to know which player to blame, plus I wasn't convinced of Brown's sincerity. In retrospect, I can see his point. It's the coach's job to get his players to play as well as they can play. If they don't hustle, maybe it's a character problem. But maybe it's a coaching problem. If they don't have that killer instinct, maybe it's a character problem. But maybe it's a coaching problem. Like I said, I like Randolph. I hope he figures out the bullpen stuff. If the players seem to have a character problem again, though? I'd think about getting them a new coach.

Randolph

[Guest Edgy DC]

Well, believing they could right things without aggressive intervention by him --- which is what I believe he's talking about --- is, in it's own way, admitting a coaching failure.

[HahnSolo]

G-Fafif wrote: My 1,160th post made me Willie Randolph. And let me say the champagne indeed tastes sweeter as a result.

And now you're Dave Schneck. Good times.

[Elster88]

metsguyinmichigan wrote: Hell, Jeffrey Meier could have fallen out of the stands, pushed Tarasco over, dropped the ball, pick it up, built a sand castle in the warning track and get pulled into the stands by a hot dog vendor and the umpires in that case STILL would have called it a home run. Remember, you're talking about Derek Jeter. "Yankee Magic" trumps all common sense.

I dunno, this was pre- Jeter = God, no?

[stevejrogers]

Elster88 wrote: ="metsguyinmichigan"]Hell, Jeffrey Meier could have fallen out of the stands, pushed Tarasco over, dropped the ball, pick it up, built a sand castle in the warning track and get pulled into the stands by a hot dog vendor and the umpires in that case STILL would have called it a home run. Remember, you're talking about Derek Jeter. "Yankee Magic" trumps all common sense. I dunno, this was pre- Jeter = God, no?

Not really, Jeter was pretty much being touted on the Gregg Jefferies level by the Yankees and the media as being that next "Great Yankee"

Though this moment probably was his first "Magic" moment.

[Valadius]

Except he didn't do anything. It was some schmuck kid.

[Guest Edgy DC]

The ump blew the call. I don't think we need to get into the ump falling into a conspiracy. Rather, criticize the Yankee management and Giuliani for ungraciously lionizing the kid for giving them a cheap victory.