Watching analysis and listening to announcers debate the accuracy of Aramis Ramirez striking out swinging without swinging (you read that correctly) is so boring you’ll feel like you sat through a powerpoint presentation by the end, but it’s something that needs to be seen.

Here’s what happens: Aramis Ramirez ducks a ball in on the hands, it clips his bat on the way across and the catcher reaches up to snag it. The umpire, going on sound, calls him out. Ramirez claims it hit his hand. It didn’t, and in a world where refs and umpires almost never seem to get it right, a guy made a quick call and nailed it. Ramirez struck out swinging without moving his bat.

It’s a perfect example of how the complexities of pro baseball make it the finest sport ever organized by man. It’s also a perfect example of how baseball is f**king NyQuil in sports-form.

[h/t Big League Stew]

The best part is when the ball hits him in the dick. (via Reading Between The Seams)

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By way of Jimmy Traina’s Hot Clicks comes the most athletic thing you’re going to see on a baseball diamond today (and probably tomorrow, unless decades of watching the boring-ass All-Star Game have steered me wrong). The image grab from the video to the right makes it look like one of those mock-up Avengers posters where everyone’s falling and jump-kicking at nothing. There isn’t a lot of context for the video outside of me just telling you what happened, so here it goes — instead of plowing through the catcher like so much Scott Cousins, the runner goes for a diving cartwheel thing OVER the catcher and pulls it off, but the umpire is just like “f**k you, you’re out” like he was Willie Mays Hayes pulling up short on a slide. Watching the video it does look like he’s out, but that ump was ready to call him on his bullsh** before he was even tagged.

Of course, my mind went to terrible pop culture, and all I could think of watching this was Tony Micelli’s terrible Superman dive through a catcher’s easy tag from “Who’s The Boss?” (at about the :20 mark)

Maybe Tony should’ve brushed up on his capoeira before trying to slide.

[By way of It's Always Sunny in Detroit]

The actual plot of this video, according to the YouTube description:

Jose Canseco gets pissed at umpire, gets ejected from game, then brother Ozzie comes out and he gets ejected from the game, couldn’t tell why, but sign language says it pretty well.

The plot of the video according to me:

Somebody starts playing “Mambo Number 5″ by Lou Bega at the San Fernando Valley Skateboard Monsterz park (or wherever Canseco hangs around now) and Jose gets pissed and confronts an umpire about it. Jose thinks the choice of music is “bullsh**”, and starts screaming it over and over until he’s ejected. This makes him angry, so “Rock Me Like a Hurricane” starts playing to sort of illustrate his anger and everybody gets ejected.

And I mean, who can blame him? If I had to listen to the entirety of Mambo Number 5 in 2011 I’d flip out and start screaming bullsh** at people, too. Of course I didn’t do horse tranq and uppers for two decades like Jose, so it probably would’ve been limited to me poking my head out of the dugout and saying “Jesus, can somebody turn that off?” to nobody in particular.

Part of me really wants to see Ozzie Guillen get thrown out of a game to “Tubthumping” by Chumbawumba now.

[H/T We the West]

How about that Jim Joyce? I haven’t seen a pooch screwed like that since I stopped working at PetSmart. But to be fair, this is the burden that the umpires of baseball have placed upon themselves by allowing their employers to ignore the benefits of instant replay review in games. Now that Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga lost a perfect game due to inevitable human error, it’s time for baseball to step away from the Ford Edsel and expand the use of replay review in its games. How would they do it? I thought you’d never ask…

Add a fifth umpire and use a booth review system. When umpires decide to review questionable home run calls under the current system, they all trot off the field together like drunks shuffling out of a bar. That’s annoying and it’s the biggest part of the delays currently involved with MLB’s replay system. Leave it up to a guy in the booth to make the final decision. The crew on the field had their chance to get it right; they can sit this one out.

It doesn’t even have to be a fifth umpire. Hell, grab that third base ump and stick him up there. He’s not doing anything except sweating through his jowls. Those guys would appreciate spending every fourth night in an air-conditioned suite.

Leave the decision to review with the umpires. We can’t give managers the opportunity to challenge calls. We don’t want them calmly dropping red flags on the field or hot dog wrappers or whatever. We want them running out of the dugout going apesh*t and screaming at whoever booted that called strike. Leave the decision to the umps.

Allow any questionable play to be reviewed, except for balls and strikes. Admit it, umpires screw a lot of stuff up. And don’t give me this line about how their job is harder because they’re some kind of public figure. You know why NFL officials aren’t demonized, Paul Lukas? Because THE TEAMS ACTUALLY HAVE AN OPPORTUNITY FOR APPEAL. It’s amazing what can happen in your sport when everyone stops pretending that it’s 1950.

That said, let’s not start reviewing individual pitches. Otherwise, four-hour games will become the norm, and that just won’t do on a school night.

Get rid of the designated hitter. This has nothing to do with replay. I just hate the DH.

So does this have a chance in hell of ratification? Maybe. The umpires’ union would enjoy adding more jobs with a “replay umpire,” and it would restore confidence to the officiating of the game. I’m not the first person to say this, but it’s not a matter of “if,” but “when” baseball enters the 21st century and fully integrates instant replay. Just open up and say, “Ahhhh,” baseball. This won’t hurt a bit.

There’s no arguing with one of the greatest heels of all time in pro wrestling, and so if the Iron Sheik says that you need humbling, then it will be so. Sheik made a personal message for MLB umpire Jim Joyce (the ref that blew the call to take away that perfect game from the Detroit Tigers last night). And I just love the way it opens with the pan up and over the belly while “Take Me Out To The Ballgame” toots in the background. I was ready for Mean Gene Okerlund to pop out and stick a microphone in his face. It’s not like Gene has anything else going on. Read the rest of this entry »