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 »

UPDATE: Jim Joyce is behind the plate for today’s Tigers/Indians game, and he came out with the waterworks flowing. Armando Galarraga presented the Tigers’ lineup card to Joyce, who then really turned on the tears. You almost feel bad for him until you watch the video below, which has been updated with a working copy.

Armando “Not So Big Cat” Galarraga flirted with history last night, as he was vying for the 21st perfect game in Major League Baseball history, the unprecedented third perfect game of this early season, and the first in Detroit Tigers history. But with two outs, Cleveland Indians shortstop Jason Donald hit a weak grounder to second that was cut off by Miguel Cabrera, whose throw to Galarraga covering first appeared to be in time. But veteran umpire Jim Joyce called Donald safe, and for the first time ever, the city of Detroit knew the meaning of sad.

Joyce’s insanely stupid bonehead call not only cost Galarraga his perfect game, but a no-hitter as well, leaving the 28-year old Venezuelan with a stinky old complete game shutout. Joyce was booed by Detroit fans throughout the final at-bat for Cleveland, and Detroit manager Jim Leyland put down his pack of Camel Wides long enough to give Joyce an earful, before the 23-year umpire was escorted off the field. After the game, Joyce watched the replay and made a humble admission of guilt for his blind-as-a-bat idiotic doodie-for-brains call.

Spurn your own, MLB.com:

Joyce blew a call, the most important of his life, and he knew it.

“It was the biggest call of my career and I kicked the [stuff] out of it,” he said. “I just cost that kid a perfect game after he pitched his [butt] off all night.”

“I had a great angle, and I missed the call,” he said. “I really thought he beat the ball. At that time, I thought he beat the ball. After I heard from the Tigers, who had obviously seen a replay, I asked the guy in the room to cue up the play as soon as we got in here, and I missed it from here to that wall.”

Galarraga, all things considered, handled the amazingly mind-blowingly batsh*t call with maturity and decency, as he offered only a smile after he realized that Donald was called safe. After the game, and after hearing Joyce’s admission, Galarraga commented: “He apologized. He feels really bad. Nobody is perfect.” See what he did there?

Despite his turd-a-riffic Corky-esque call of epic lunacy, Joyce is widely considered one of the best umpires in baseball. Upon hearing of this debacle, umpire Joe West called a press conference and took credit for the BP oil spill.

Read the rest of this entry »

Major League Baseball decided not to expand the use of instant replay for 2010, despite consideration stemming from a cluster of blown calls by umpires in the playoffs and late regular season in 2009. General managers didn’t even vote on it, in large part due to commissioner Bud Selig’s adamant opposition to it.

Any change for 2010 likely would be likely have to be instigated by commissioner Bud Selig, who repeatedly has said he’s against widening the use of video review. While there was discussion, Solomon said “it was all confined to the current instant replay system that we have.”

“I think commissioner Selig is going to look at the entire umpiring structure and he’s going to seek ways to enhance the entire structure,” Solomon said. –Y! Sports.

Baseball with instant replay is like my grandparents with email: you’ll have to push them into it kicking and screaming. Hang on, here comes an email from Grandpa right now…”Call me when you get this.” Way to join the information age, you old coot.