Jerry Meals Might Have Been Right

why McKenry was swipe tagging in the first place? He had plenty of time/room to keep the glove on Lugo to eliminate all doubt.

It was a much closer call than the commenters are making it out to be. He just barely swiped the shin. When the ball beats the runner by that much, you just expect the call, but it was closer than it should have been. Jerry Meals is a terrible umpire for more than just this call and frankly, the play at the plate might not have even been his worst call during the game.

Neyer is despicable.

I always lose respect for sports writers who force themselves to go against the grain in order to get page hits to their articles. so what, there may have been a 4% chance that he missed the guy with his glove by 1/16 of an inch, so that makes it a 96% chance that he was out and 4% chance that he was basically out. just wasn’t worth calling the guy safe, the game shouldn’t be decided by an umpire trying to make a novel call

Or does your last paragraph imply that your fellow sportswriters think what they think because they wanted the game to last forever, rather than because of an objective judgment?

Did you want the rest of the game? Meals may have been “highly professional” after the game but several times during the game he showed his rear by staring down pitchers, looking into the dugouts, and coming out from behind home plate when he should be calling balls and strikes. Meals will be remembered for the blown call but that should’t over shadow the fact he’d been looking for a fight all night long.

from his angle the play looked differently than the TV angles

I didn’t see this play live and didn’t read anything about it until I watched the videos. Honestly, the runner was “probably” out, but it was a casual sweep tag, and I didn’t see anything absolutely conclusive. If I’m Meals – and I’ve been a paid umpire (youth/high school) for 10 years – I’m assuming it’s an “out” unless I see otherwise. The lateness of the hour – NOT his desire to go home, but simply the fact that he had been squatting for 5+ hours and hundreds of pitches – might have caused him to have a mental lapse. That isn’t acceptable, of course, and although I am generally opposed to mass expansion of replay, in this case (a winning run) it would have been warranted. However, even with replay, I’m not entirely clear that the wrong call was made. PROBABLY. But not necessarily. Good for you Rob for using your eyes instead of just assuming that “because the throw beat him” then he must have been out.

Is Julio Lugo’s immediate reaction. That’s the reaction of a man who’s been tagged, not a man who just scored the winning run.

Even if you can seriously argue that Lugo wasn’t tagged… twice… the play happend at about FOUR FEET in FRONT of home plate.

And the plate was blocked!

He never touched the plate!

How can he be called safe when he’s FOUR FEET in front of it? He has to TOUCH the damned thing first!

This was a bad call. There are no two ways about it.

How Hurdle managed his pitching staff is a different issue. That doesn’t change the fact that Lugo was OUT, tagged before he was in the VICINITY of the plate. And tagged a second time as well.

Was Jerry Meals tired and ready to return to his hotel room? Maybe. Tough. That’s what he gets paid to do… fairly umpire a game until it concludes, regardless of how long it takes. If he can’t or won’t do that, he has no business being an umpire in MLB or at at any other level of professional or amateur baseball.

 ump’s side shows the glove bouncing off the leg. Not dramatically, but you can see it. And seriously, look up the word “iconoclast.” Arguing whether the ump missed the tag does not make one an “iconoclast.”

I don’t know how people here can say it was “no question” or “the ump was blind.” We have still pictures and we can’t even tell. This one goes either way, the ump chose safe. I have no issues with this call, other than it’d suck to be a Pirates fan.

Again, I reiterate:

Even IF there was no tag… and there was, but that’s not the point…

The Safe called happened approximately FOUR FEET up the 3rd base line from Home Plate.

Lugo was NOT called Safe at the Plate — he wasn’t even close.

Even Meals wasn’t near the plate, but way in front of it.

Look at the pictures again, if you don’t believe me. The white you see is what’s left of the chalk. Do you see the plate anywhere near Lugo or McKennry?

This wasn’t even “in the neighborhood.” It wasn’t even in the same ZIP code.

And Lugo knew it. Otherwise, why else would he have made a point, after the call, to walk over and touch home plate to make it “official”

THAT is what makes this a bad call, an obvious one. This isn’t a judgement call, because the call didn’t happen at or anywhere immediately near the plate.

This wasn’t an umpire making a human mistake in a split second. IMHO, this was a man who didn’t feel like doing his job any longer and wanted an excuse, any excuse, to put an end to the game. And if that’s the case… then he has no business ever umpiring a game again, on the grounds of unprofessional conduct.

If there were replay, I think the determination would have been inconclusive to change the call. And I think it would have been inconclusive had he called him out too.

I’ve watched replays and seen photos, but nothing that shows with certitude that the catcher touched him, because the sweeping tag never adjusted in mid-air to show that it contacted anything. So, a thread of the glove might have touched.

I think, though, that the reaction of the catcher and of Lugo are informative, because a player who isn’t touched doesn’t ever think he’s out (even when they are touched they fake it). Lugo looked like he genuinely thought he was out, since he was “tagged” before getting near the plate and half-heartedly touched the plate. The catcher also looked stunned, like he wasn’t faking a “yeah I got him.” I’m not saying players are always honest, but the two reactions of the players, to me, are the best “proof,” because maybe at 2am you’re just a little more honest due to tiredness.

But via the eye, it’s all circumstantial, so I don’t blame the umpire in this regard. And I don’t think replay would make it any more clearer.

For those of you denigrating him for trolling for hits (I’m not saying one way or the other), you’ve done a fine job of obliging the man. You not only visited the page, you took the time to post.

Well played, Rob.

Oh, he sure looked out to me…but I can’t say for certain.

Call me a sensationalist or an iconoclast if you like, but I just gotta say something this morning …

Jerry Meals might have been right.

I know it’s a big word for a baseball writer, but “iconoclast” is a questionable word choice.

1. a person who destroys religious images or opposes their veneration
2. a person who attacks settled beliefs or institutions

In the context of your piece I guess you’re groping for the 2nd, but when I hear the word “iconoclast” I tend to think more of people Bob Dylan, Keith Richards or Che Guevara and not some smart ass baseball scribe. The word you’re looking for is “contrarian” — my definition is someone who gets joy in poking a finger in the eye of long suffering baseball fans.

Using Neyer’s logic “every tag play” we should just assume the umpire made the correct call because he was right there and the television camera can deceive us when it comes to whether or not the glove actually touched the runner. That is the argument people use against replay for all sports. But in this age of Hi-Def, that argument doesn’t hold water.

The ump blew the call and everybody who saw the play live, be it the players on the field, the fans in the stands or all of us who saw it on television, clearly saw that the ump “gave” the game to the Braves because the game was in the 19th inning. If that same play happens in the 5th inning, he calls him out 100 out of 100 times.

And I totally disagree on what Neyer said about the Pirates using their closer in a tie game. Why? So you might be forced to pitch him 3 innings and thus he isn’t available the rest of the series? Hurdle has handled his bullpen masterfully all season and he did it again last night. 19 innings and he still had his closer there if the Pirates score in the top of an inning. Hurdle didn’t have to use a starter and McCuthen was on the verge of pitching another shutout inning had the ump “not blown the call”.

Here’s a series of clear screen grabs, with credit to MLB, and solid commentary that someone posted on FB that shows NO evidence of a clear tag. VERY close, but no change in cloth shape, glove shape, or arc of the tagging arm. Click left and right for 3 shots at a time, and if you forget about your emotions and watch with an open mind, I think you’ll start to empathize with Meals, the OP, and me. http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=562938&id=100001438512984

Nearly 20 years ago, another game winner at the plate where the tribe beat team blunderbuss (oh yes, pun intended).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5I-MAUn4mA

I am new and don’t know the rules of the blog, sorry if I’m breaking them.

Mears missed the call. Period.

Don’t believe me? You don’t have to. He now ADMITS that he missed the call, that there WAS a tag.

Joe Torre in the MLB offices agrees. Not that it does any good.

Discussion is over. And Rob, your article now comes across as very disappointing to say the least, I thought better of you.

one misses the point that the game could have been won or lost at a hundred other points. As a long-suffering Giants’ fan, I’m used to seeing that they lost 3-2 or something and the storyline is the bullpen blew it or somebody struck out in the ninth – but that’s not the story, the story is an offense should be able to score more than 2 runs. My god, this is a 19 inning game – a very low-scoring game. It’s a bit much to focus on this one play. The Pirates scored 3 runs in 19 innings, they lost. The Braves unimpressively scored 4. They won.

Rob’s point is right – I certainly can’t tell conclusively. I haven’t seen anything that looks like a clear tag. The catcher didn’t apply one – even with the throw beating Lugo by 6 feet. I’m not saying that Meals was right or wrong, because I truly can’t see it.

I’m on-again, off-again about replay, but something one needs to remember is until one can get a 3D replay from infinite (or many) angles, the umpire standing right there sees it better than any camera could. Of course “real time” is an issue, but anyone who has any experience in visual arts or technology knows 2D is not “real”. The photo above, while appreciated, is a painting, a 2D representation. So is video.

I know by a thousand different reasons Lugo should have been out. So maybe, even probably, he was. But would you bet the house and home on it? I think that’s Rob’s point.

By the way, I’m not a “fanboy” of either team. I’m rooting for the Pirates actually because it’s a great story. But they aren’t winning or losing the division based on one play, it takes 162 games. People should mellow out.