Hoo boy … this one could get interesting …
Country Joe West has the dish tonight at Dodger Stadium.
C.B. Bucknor would like a word as well.
CameronDuke's original point and MChambers' follow-up (among others) remain on target, though: It's utterly inexplicable that MLB continues to trot him out, let alone in a very high-stakes game on a featured stage.
And they do it all the time. Sam Holbrook, another awful umpire, made the single worst call I ever witnessed in person at the approximately 500 MLB games I attended over the course of a quarter century or so (the infield fly ruling at the 2012 Braves vs. Cardinals wild card game...a call I will never get over despite the fact that the Barves and MLB are largely dead to me), and then was back in action to make another awful call on a runner interference play in the 2019 World Series.
And these are but two of many examples of how in so, so, many ways, MLB has its proverbial head up its [posterior].
Funny you mention that infield fly call. I was just discussing that play in the 2012 wild card game with a friend the other day. Like you said, it was a totally wrong call and a terrible one, too. And I am a Cardinals fan. I actually grew up a huge Braves fan. I was angry for the Braves that night. Andrelton Simmons was batting and hit a fly ball to shallow left field. Pete Kozma drifted out from his shortstop position to catch the pop up but it was out of his range so he deferred to a charging Matt Holliday from left field. The two stood there looking at one another and the ball fell in between them. The infield fly rule states essentially the infielder has to exert “ordinary effort” in order to potentially catch the pop up. Kozma was on his horse and was never really displaying to me in my judgment that he was going to be able to catch the darn thing. For the umpires to call that an infield fly was bizarre. He never was fully under the baseball to make the catch. Infield fly rule judgment calls don’t even have to be on the infield. If the infielder can run into the outfield and exert ordinary effort to catch a pop up, it can still be an infield fly call. That was a terrible call. The Atlanta fans tossed beer bottles onto the field after that for quite a while.
It really and truly was the single worst officiating call I've ever seen live, in any sport.
Another thing that really galled me about the post-mortem of that moment was that after years of dismissing Atlanta fans as "fickle" or "lukewarm" or whatever, suddenly the talking heads did an about face to castigate attendees for being too invested in that moment. I of course get that it's never appropriate to throw things on the field, but if ever a group of fans had legitimate cause to be truly livid in that way, it was Barves fans at that game. Many in the city are still angry about it, and it's seriously one of those things you just don't bring up around here.
And again, that Sam Holbrook not only didn't face significant discipline, but also became a crew chief a few years later and continues to umpire in high-stakes and high-visibility postseason games...just beggars belief to me. As most of y'all know, I swore off the Barves (and basically baseball in general) in 2013, but I still find it unfathomable that these men are still allowed to officiate games.
I agree that it was a terrible call. I also think that the infield fly rule is the stupidest rule in baseball. IMO it would be cool to watch infielders let a pop-up drop and then try to get a double play. It wouldn't always work. Sometimes it would be an easy DP, but if you don't like it, then don't hit a pop-up (Joey Votto went several years between pop-outs).
Maybe it was payback for the Don Denkinger call that went against the Cardinals in the 6th game of the 1985 World Series. The Cardinals were up 3 games to 2. The call in question came in the bottom of the ninth inning with the Cardinals leading 1-0. He called the KC leadoff hitter, Jorga Orta safe at first base when he was out by at least half step. The Royals went on to win the game and in the 7th game, the Royals routed the Cards, To his credit he later owned up to the bad call.
I was surprised at the call at the time, but when I read the articles about it the next day and also read the wording of the infield fly rule, I concluded that the umpire made the call required by the rule. One can question whether the infield fly rule should apply that far from the, uh, infield, but by its terms it does.
So I'll go with the 2019 WS interference call on Turner as the worst in recent years.
No doubt, he missed the call, but Joyce was one of the good umpires. I saw a game on TV late in Joyce's last year, and he didn't miss a single pitch the entire game. It was the best HP job I've ever seen.
Also, he wrote some mighty impressive novels, even if they were hard, or even impossible, to read.
Oh I'm not denying that there have been other catastrophically terrible calls; I'm just referring to ones I've witnessed live in the however many hundreds of sporting events I've attended over the years.
Like, Grave Digger got robbed by the judges at Atlanta Monster Jam a couple of years ago.