I used to have season Spring training tickets for the Yanks when they played in Fort Lauderdale.
I was sitting in the Front Row right behind home plate for the first spring training game and Billy
Martin was the manager that year. The year before Billy was thrown out of a game and he started kicking dirt on the Umpires shoes after he got kicked out of the game. Well on this beautiful
spring day in Fort Lauderdale Billy approaches home plate to exchange lineup cards with the Ump
and as he handed the lineup card to the ump he looks at the crowd in the stands with a big smile
and starts to kick dirt all over the home plate umpires shoes. Of course the ump started to laugh
We used to go up to a lot of those Yankees games in Fort Lauderdale. Going back to that ballpark in its final years, when the Orioles were training there (as late as 2009), it was shocking how little that park had changed in 30-plus years. The press box and broadcast booths perched on the roof were like an amusement park ride.
Billy was the best. You think about the pressure he faced in those years working for Steinbrenner and managing some of the huge personalities and egos he had on those clubs. What he was able to accomplish is really quite remarkable.
The idea behind instant replay was to fix egregious mistakes, and I like that. No game should be won or lost on a blown call when there's technology that can, much of the time (but not all of the time), give you a definitive answer. And that game-changing call might happen in the first inning. You don't know. What I'm not wild about is how it has deteriorated into a guy diving head-first into a base and the fielder holding the tag on him because there's a chance the fingernail of his left ring finger may have come off the bag. And they slow it down and zoom in, and they're trying to figure out if the fingernail stayed in contact. To me, that's not the spirit of instant replay. But once you introduce it, it's hard to draw that line.
I used to have season Spring training tickets for the Yanks when they played in Fort Lauderdale.
I was sitting in the Front Row right behind home plate for the first spring training game and Billy
Martin was the manager that year. The year before Billy was thrown out of a game and he started kicking dirt on the Umpires shoes after he got kicked out of the game. Well on this beautiful
spring day in Fort Lauderdale Billy approaches home plate to exchange lineup cards with the Ump
and as he handed the lineup card to the ump he looks at the crowd in the stands with a big smile
and starts to kick dirt all over the home plate umpires shoes. Of course the ump started to laugh
at Billy..................
We used to go up to a lot of those Yankees games in Fort Lauderdale. Going back to that ballpark in its final years, when the Orioles were training there (as late as 2009), it was shocking how little that park had changed in 30-plus years. The press box and broadcast booths perched on the roof were like an amusement park ride.
Billy was the best. You think about the pressure he faced in those years working for Steinbrenner and managing some of the huge personalities and egos he had on those clubs. What he was able to accomplish is really quite remarkable.
I always considered bad calls just a part of the game.
The idea behind instant replay was to fix egregious mistakes, and I like that. No game should be won or lost on a blown call when there's technology that can, much of the time (but not all of the time), give you a definitive answer. And that game-changing call might happen in the first inning. You don't know. What I'm not wild about is how it has deteriorated into a guy diving head-first into a base and the fielder holding the tag on him because there's a chance the fingernail of his left ring finger may have come off the bag. And they slow it down and zoom in, and they're trying to figure out if the fingernail stayed in contact. To me, that's not the spirit of instant replay. But once you introduce it, it's hard to draw that line.
Good stuff. I always thought umps did a pretty good job. I'm amazed how many calls are reversed these days.
On average this year, it's about one overturn every 5 games.