Nobody should ever blame a bad call by an umpire as the sole reason your team lost and that is the case in the LD Bell / Plano East game yesterday.
East had chances, especially early in the game, to light up the scoreboard but didn't make it happen. LD Bell won the game and the series because they played excellent defense and got hits when they needed. I don't speak for everybody but I wish them luck the rest of the year.
To the 6th inning yesterday and the blown call on the home run...the 3B umpire absolutely blew the call on the home run. It really wasn't close and the Bell LF said so in today's Dallas Morning News.
The 3B umpire made the call and to be fair, he did a good job in previous games behind the plate (Game 1 v C-Heritage / Game 2 v LD Bell) but what happened on Saturday was his "Sandusky Moment" as an umpire...there is no good explanation for a 57 year old man to be in the showers with a 12 year old boy and that monster will always have that on his resume. It doesn't really matter what yesterday's 3B umpire has done or will do the rest of his life in baseball. He will still be known as the umpire gullible enough to be faked out on what should have been an easy call...in the 3rd round of the playoffs!!
The worst part about it...it really does get worse.. was the "I know what I saw and I'm not wrong" arrogance displayed afterwards. He was adamant about not reversing the call and admitting he was wrong. The 3 other stooges (known as the rest of the crew) were either afraid to tell him he was wrong or just as incompetent when they got together to discuss what happened.
Somebody needs to retire or be fired over what happened yesterday.
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