6 comments Sometimes I Just Don't Like Sportswriters

I couldn't decide whether to focus on Jay Mariotti or Mike Lupica's article about how Bud Selig should have overturned Armando Galarraga's non-perfect perfect game. I decided to cover Jay Mariotti's column about it because he had the right amount of moral indignation and outrage at the fact the commissioner doesn't arbitrarily overturn the results of baseball games. Plus, I am contractually obligated to write one post a week about Jay Mariotti.

The title of the article is "Bud Lite Blows Call on Ump's Blown Call." It must have taken at least 10-15 seconds to think of that creative title.

Let me explain the title: See, the commissioner is Bud Selig and Mariotti thinks he is weak so he calls him "lite," and whereas you would think the umpire is the one who blew the call, oh no, it was Bud Selig who blew it by not changing the result of the game to fit some parts of the public's need to have the record books reflect Galarraga threw a perfect game...even though he didn't.

Yes, Jim Joyce blew a call. But Bud Selig has done so much worse in wrecking an entire era.

(Bengoodfella searches the Internet for pictures of Bud Selig shooting athletes up with PEDs...fails to find any pictures that reflect this, goes back to greatly disliking Jay Mariotti)

I am completely on the fence about Bud Selig. He has dropped the ball on some issues that could be made simpler (the All-Star game and how it decides who gets home field advantage in the World Series...though I would rather the team with the best regular season record just get home field advantage), he has ignored other issues (PED use by baseball players), and he has gotten some other issues exactly right (this specific situation). If were to give him an approval rating, it would be a 51%, so I don't love him, but I also don't hate him. To say he wrecked an entire era of baseball is quite untrue though. He had a hand in it, there's no doubt, but he isn't the only person to blame for baseball's problems.

I don't think this era of baseball is wrecked at all. Does anyone else feel like we are on the cusp of a sort of golden era for baseball? There are so many great players coming up from the minors and I feel like the talent pool has been greatly increased in the majors...maybe I am delusional. I think this is an exciting time for baseball though.

In yet the latest blunder of a career known more for infuriating shortsightedness than any forward, dynamic thinking, our 75-year-old commissioner is refusing to reverse the blown call of veteran umpire Jim Joyce.

The fact Jay Mariotti just accused Bud Selig of not being forward-thinking because he won't GO BACK and change a bad call by an umpire is interesting to me. Some may call it ironic. A forward-thinking person wouldn't go back and change the call because he would see what could happen in the future if one call in a game is changed due to a public outcry. A shortsighted commissioner would make the change, not worrying about the future calls that may be bad and how he will have to treat those.

Call Bud Selig whatever you want, but to call him not forward-thinking and criticize his decision to let Joyce's bad call stand is incredibly incorrect. The shortsighted easy answer is to change the call and worry later about what it would mean in a different, yet similar, situations three months down the road.

The error would have been easy enough for Selig to fix: Realize that Joyce was outrageously wrong to call Cleveland's Jason Donald safe with two out in the ninth inning, grasp that Galarraga and the Tigers went on to win 3-0 and conclude that a call reversal would be irrelevant to the game's outcome.

This is the most irritating argument to change this call, that it wouldn't change the game's outcome. This is irrelevant reasoning as to why this call should be changed. Does this mean any bad call that didn't have an effect on the outcome should be changed?

I find it interesting (perhaps ironic) many of the same people who were going apeshit about the effect the Steroid Era had on baseball and worrying about the sanctity of the game if any of those players make the Hall of Fame are also many of the same people who want Bud Selig to randomly make changes to the outcome of a game (which would lead to more changes being made, why just stop with this one game?). Also, many of these same people who want this call reversed are those who don't like new-fangled statistics, because they feel statistics are ruining the fan's enjoyment and perspective of the game...but they are in favor of the commissioner acting to change certain result of a game around. I have a hard time putting these two positions together.

This is a group of people who liked things the way they were dammit, but yet, they want the commissioner to go back and change bad calls that were made during a game, which didn't have an effect on the outcome on the game. It is an interesting a group of people, like Jay Mariotti, who wants PED users to be shot on sight for ruining the sanctity of baseball, but also think the commissioner should change the results of games to make it more "fair." Few things could ruin the sanctity of baseball than Bud Selig listening to the outcry of the public and changing anything about a baseball game that is deemed "unfair." So it is fine to control the outcome of games or plays, but only on certain terms.

That way, Selig would remind fans that baseball's integrity is vital to its record-keeping and that he can't, in good conscience, leave Galarraga off history's roll call.

And then he would have to go back and change every other bad call in the history of baseball that didn't have an effect on the game. You know, for the integrity of baseball.

But as we awaited justice, Selig just brought more inaction and ambiguity to a sport that is more maddening these days than satisfying.

I have no idea how baseball is more maddening these days than satisfying. We don't get another example of why or how Jay Mariotti thinks this. That's not his intention. For sports journalists like Jay Mariotti, the "why" and the "how" doesn't matter if he is the one screaming the loudest.

"While the human element has always been an integral part of baseball, it is vital that mistakes on the field be addressed," Selig said. "Given last night's call and other recent events, I will examine our umpiring system, the expanded use of instant replay and all other related features."

So Galarraga becomes the guinea pig for change but will gain no satisfaction himself.

Oh the horror of this! The commissioner has stated he is going to look into making sure this doesn't happen again, but he isn't going back and changing results of games over the years to make sure everyone who has been the victim of a bad umpiring call gets satisfaction. It's like baseball's form of reparations.

Congratulations St. Louis Cardinals, you have won the 1985 World Series now! Actually that's right, we can't change Don Denkinger's call because it had an effect on Game 6 and the commissioner shouldn't go back and change calls that had an effect on games. What is the point of going back and changing bad umpiring calls if you are only going to change the calls in games were the call had no effect on the game? Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of changing the call? Not that I want the commissioner to ever go back and change calls, but wouldn't it make sense if he did this, to change the bad calls in games where the bad call had an effect on the game's outcome?

Too bad Selig didn't have the class to reverse the call.

This is completely not about class. MLB hires neutral third party observers to enforce the rules of baseball set up by MLB. One of the neutral observers made a bad call. It isn't classy to reverse the call or not classy for the commissioner of MLB choosing not to reverse the call. It is about what is best for baseball. Everyone would love to see Armando Galarraga get a perfect game, but Bud Selig doesn't want to be in the business of changing any part of the results of a baseball game, no matter how tempting this may be to do. He is right not to do this.

Bud Selig chooses not to change this call because he lacks class, but because he is forward-thinking (in this instance) and realizes changing the call of an umpire can't be done just once. If he does it in a June game where there are no playoff implications, he would have to change an umpire's call in a game that actually had short-term importance in the standings, like a game in September between two teams fighting for a Wild Card spot or the division lead.

"I was thinking if the umpire says he made a mistake on replay, I'd call it a no-hitter, perfect game. Just scratch it," said St. Louis Cardinals manager Tony La Russa, joining the national chorus.

Then Tony LaRussa put the pitcher batting 8th in the order for the next day's game, made five pitching changes during one at-bat for an opposing player, walked by twelve of his players on the Cardinals who were using PEDs in the clubhouse, and went to a bar to get incredibly wasted and pass out in his car at an intersection.

Can we really trust the opinion of a guy who had Mark McGwire and Jose Canseco in his locker room and didn't suspect they were using PEDs in some fashion? He's also good friends with Buzz Bissinger, which also is another strike against him in my mind.

I feel like I have to remind Jay Mariotti there is also a national chorus stating Bud Selig should keep the game as a non-perfect game. I would say there are more people probably advocating Selig should keep the game as it is rather than change it to a perfect game, but I have no research that proves this.

"If I was Mr. Selig, in the best interest of the game ... the guy got it and I'd give him his perfect game. But here again, I should just shut my mouth."

Yeah, you probably should keep your mouth shut because your opinion is stupid...in my opinion. I will never understand how changing Jim Joyce's call is "in the best interest of the game." Arbitrarily changing the outcome of certain baseball games that had "bad umpiring calls" is not in the best interest of baseball.

No, he shouldn't. If anything, Selig should retire for the good of the game.

What do you know, Jay Mariotti is calling for someone else to get fired or quit. This only happens a minimum of once a week.

He is not a man as much as a mannequin.

This is sports journalism in the year 2010! Jay Mariotti and AOL should be embarrassed.

-Jon Heyman made a list of the Top 20 draft booms and busts in the MLB Draft. I am surprised Heyman didn't make a list of "The top 20 Scott Boras clients in the MLB Draft" or maybe Mr. Boras requested that Heyman do that later. Heyman always has time to shill for Scott Boras at a later time I guess.

Let's start first with his "busts" list.

20. Jeff King, 1986, No. 1 overall, Pirates.

Jeff King was certainly a disappointing #1 overall pick, but he is not one of the worst bust draft picks of all-time. No way. He played eleven years in the majors and was an above average baseball player for four of those years. He was never a star and was only an average baseball player, but I wouldn't say he is one of the worst busts of all-time.

King really wasn't that awful, with 154 career home runs and some contributions for the last successful Pirates teams of the early '90s.

Well then of course it makes perfect sense to say King wasn't that awful and then include him on this list of the worst busts of all-time in the MLB Draft.

But it's not so much about King, it's who was taken after him.

This is idiocy then. You can't put Jeff King on this list as a bust in the draft solely based on who other teams took after he was drafted. This list would be 100 pages long if you included every single player that was drafted instead of a different player who ended up being a star in the majors. You can essentially list every player that was drafted instead of Mike Piazza and Roy Halladay. So if King wasn't a great player that's one thing, but you could put a bunch of players on this list who were drafted over guys who turned out to be superior players.

He was followed by Greg Swindell (No. 2), Matt Williams (No. 3), Kevin Brown (No. 4) and Gary Sheffield (No. 6).

You could put Phil Nevin on this list since he was drafted by the Astros instead of Johnny Damon, Derek Jeter, and Jason Kendall. Put a player on this list as a bust based on his own performance, not based solely on who was drafted behind him.

Now for the "bonanza" part of Heyman's list:

11. Cal Ripken Jr., SS, 1978, Orioles, 2nd round. Funny to think now that the Orioles (and presumably just about everyone else) preferred someone else to Ripken, another alltime great who went in round two.

I won't argue with the selection of Cal Ripken Jr, but I will argue with Heyman's reasoning for why another team should have selected Ripken.

No one could have predicted he'd top Lou Gehrig as an iron man, but you'd think the team where his father worked as a coach might have known something no one else did.

This is terrible reasoning for second-guessing another MLB team not taking Ripken. The fact Ripken Sr. worked for the Orioles could also show that the Orioles only drafted Ripken Jr. because his father wanted to manage him or be on the same baseball club as his son. When an organization drafts a player who is the son of a prominent member of that organization, the first thought that doesn't go through anyone's head is that organization knows something no one else does. They immediately think they drafted that player because he was the son of someone important.

19. Joe Mauer, C, 2001, Twins, No. 1 overall.
How the hell can the #1 overall pick in the MLB Draft be a "bonanza?" Isn't the #1 overall pick supposed to be a great baseball player?

At the time the obvious pick was pitcher Mark Prior from USC.

Except the Twins didn't take the obvious pick, so apparently it wasn't the obvious pick, and in retrospect it was the absolutely correct pick. This entire list Jon Heyman puts together for the "bonanza" portion are supposed to be players that did better than expected from where they were drafted. That's certainly not possible at all for Joe Mauer. He was the #1 overall pick.

Maybe it was for money (Mauer signed for about half Prior's record $10.5 million bonus), or maybe it was for his local ties (he starred at St. Paul's Cretin-Derham High), but the Twins made the right call.

It doesn't matter what the reasoning behind this was. The fact remains the Twins took Joe Mauer over Mark Prior as the #1 overall pick, so there isn't any logical way Joe Mauer was a guy who is a great player for where he was drafted.

-I am sure some of you have read that Pete Rose had a corked bat when he was chasing Ty Cobb. I think more and more as we go along, we can find something wrong with nearly every single current Hall of Fame member. I do think this is interesting for the reasons Craig Calcaterra states here.

The corked bat doesn't prove too much, but I do think it is an interesting story. Obviously Pete Rose was a good baseball player, but along with his gambling, he also seemed to be willing to bend the rules. I don't know whether to consider a player who corks his bat the same as a player who uses PEDs, but I think it is pretty clear baseball wasn't entirely clean and cheating-free before the Steroid Era. So the old-timers who are freaking the hell out about a player who used PEDs being in the Hall of Fame should probably also think about the effect "greenies" had on other players who eventually made the Hall of Fame.

I didn't enjoy the Steroid Era of baseball, but sometimes I think people forget there was an era of baseball where the pitchers were throwing spitballs to batters on "greenies" who may have also possibly been using a corked bat to hit. Baseball wasn't clean before the Steroid Era and it isn't clean after the Steroid Era. It's not like cheating in baseball was invented in the 1990's. Pete Rose's bat from 1985 proves this.