I had some football on in the background over the weekend. I saw a quarterback get sacked and appear to have possibly fumbled the ball, and a pile ensued. Other defensive members of the home team gathered around excitedly and pointed the other away, but all the refs kept on just waving their arms without signaling. As the pile became smaller, the crowd went silent in anticipation. Once the ref got a good enough look at it, he stood back, waited a beat, then triumphantly shot his arm out the other way confirming the recovered fumble. 70,000 people went wild. As the ref, that's gotta be so satisfying.
That made me think, in all of sports, what as an official feels like the coolest call you can make? There's probably some fun ones in baseball like a good, dramatic strike three, or maybe an out at the plate after the catcher shows you the ball*. Nothing in basketball or hockey seem all that cool as it's all usually punitive (though the NBA refs certainly milk the calls from time to time).
*On the less dramatic side, there's that one when there's a close but obvious out at first and the ump just kind of stands there for a moment, then calmly but firmly pumps out their arm to signal the out. That seems like fun too.
In basketball, its the excitement you don't see when they shave some points off to get the under the win.
At the right situation, I think it'd be pretty cool to be the ump coming back from the replay review and twirling your finger in the air signaling HR. Or maybe telling Aaron Boone he's ejected.
I think signaling touchdown or reception when they are close would also be fun. They tend to involve incredible feats to achieve and watching the ref confirm it is fantastic. Or utterly miserable if you're on the other side.
Replay has taken some of the drama out of the on-field calls. But challenge reversals certainly can get the crowd excited, one direction or another.
So I spent the weekend geeking out with my old computer stuff. I have the old Latitude running like a champ on Windows 11 and the old ThinkPad is running Windows XP SP3. That one I had to install twice because the first time I messed up some drivers but the second time around I got it right. The only thing I can't get to work is the graphics card in the docking station. If I try to boot up while docked, I get the long-short-short beep code indicating a gpu issue. I can boot up fine when undocked, then dock up and install the card, but when I reboot after installing the drivers it stalls out and hangs and won't finish booting. So that's a project for next weekend.
I always enjoy a good "SAFE SAFE SAFE" with the emphatic waving of the hands call by the home ump on a close play at the plate
Back in the day, home umps had real unique and real excited punchouts on a strike three I bet they all enjoyed that
Manfred, taking suggestions from Fox Sports, floats the idea of teams having one defensive substitution-free pinch hitting appearance per game to juice interest. I can’t wait to see how they package this new opportunity for gambling partners and naming rights.
I need to ask myself where the line is where I can’t watch this product or encourage my kid’s interest in it anymore. The extra-innings zombie runner Manfred imposed was bad enough, but we’re getting to kickball-during-recess levels of warping the game with this idea.
Also: Man, Jayson Stark could use an editor.
He gets paid by the word, I see. Jesus.
That is an unbelievably terrible idea and anyone presuming themselves to be a serious sports journalist should be ashamed of giving it credible coverage.
I read that article. I truly hope that "Golden At-Bat" rule does not get implemented. I had to double check to see if I was reading an article from The Onion.
It's obviously an idea that he floated out there to gauge public response, but then for MLB to refuse comment when asked about it is a bit silly.
Why make teams reconsider how shallow their bench is when the rules can be changed to make it not matter.
Every year the NYY lose, new crutches need to be found
So like, you designate a hitter who doesn't have to play in the field? But just 1 time per game?
My read is that you can put any hitter on the team to bat once per game, even if they're already in the lineup. An example provided in the article that is easy to miss because, again, 5400 effin words, was that Bobby Witt Jr could potentially bat twice in a row.
In other words, it is the worst idea for a professional sports league ever suggested.
Even worse than baseball shorts and owner/manager.
Nothing more dramatic than the great Enrico Polazzo calling steeee-rrrrr-iiiiike Thuh-REEEEEE at a random Angels Mariners game back in 1988.
Calling a penalty shot in hockey.
The whole building just saw it, they know it's a possibility, but it's just rare enough that it isn't quite believable that it will get called.