Selig Botches World Series Game 5

Baseball never ceases to amaze. As a game, it has strategy, tactics, elegance and tradition. As a business, though, it is a miracle it survives the lunkheads and idiots who run it. Specifically, this journal means Bud Selig, Commissioner of Major League Baseball, for even letting Monday night’s game start, let alone calling a halt in the sixth inning due to rain.

First off, the entire eastern seaboard was going to get heavy rain and the weather maps were pretty clear that it would hit the Philadelphia area (where most of a game was played) around 9 pm. In an endless desire for ever more ad revenue, the lords of baseball had a broadcast start time of 8 pm and a first pitch well after that. This game would be played in the rain and finish in the rain, and Mr. Selig knew that before lunch.

The game was fine up until the bottom of the fifth when the rain started to affect play. That the umpires and commissioner even allowed the sixth inning to start reflects a determination to get the game in regardless of the conditions and welfare of the players. In a possibly decisive World Series game, the contest shouldn’t be played under anything like conditions Monday night.

What was particularly telling was a pop up in the fifth inning by Pedro Feliz. Under normal conditions, this would have been an infield fly out. However, the umpires made no such call. As the umpiring crew chief Tim Tschida noted, “The infield fly rule requires the umpires’ judgment to determine whether or not a ball can be caught with ordinary effort, and that includes wind.” If the weather is preventing an infield fly call, maybe the game shouldn’t be played, certainly not for the World Series Title.

As it was, the Tampa Bay Rays scored in the top of the sixth, making it all even at 2-2. The decision to postpone until the game can be finished was certainly the right one and consistent with a rules change in 2007. However, one wonders about that run, a run scored when the Phillies were asked to pitch and field in a storm.

The only guys who came out of this whole thing looking good are the members of the Philadelphia grounds crew. Their work insured that no one drowned.

© Copyright 2008 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Fedora Linux.

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