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Marlins dispute clarity of umpire Bob Davidson's vision
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By David Brown
August 6, 2010
Miami, FL — Oh, my, the Florida Marlins are not too happy with umpire Bob Davidson right now.
The Fish seemed certain they had beaten the Philadelphia Phillies on Thursday night after Gaby Sanchez hit a bouncer down the third-base line that would have scored the tie-breaking run — if Davidson had called it fair.
He did not. The Marlins dugout went berserk, and manager Edwin Rodriguez argued to no avail, later calling it "the worst call I've ever seen in my 30 years of professional baseball."
Florida failed to score in the ninth inning and the Phillies won 5-4 in 10.
Given a chance to watch the replay, Davidson did not have a "come-to-Jim-Joyce moment." He was unrepentant."I was right on top of it, and it was wide of the bag," [Davidson] said. "What the ball did when it went past me is irrelevant. ... I understand that's the winning run, but in my opinion it was foul."
All of these "kill da ump" stories became tiresome long ago, so I'm staying out of it. Looking at the replay evidence, it's hard to see — but not impossible — how Davidson could call it foul. And he gets benefit of the doubt.
I looked at the replay, probably, 20 times. Davidson's job there is not unlike the NFL official who has to spot the ball on a punt that goes out of bounds. It's not as simple as, "look where the ball lands."
An aside: You should hear the Marlins broadcasters, Rich Waltz and Tommy Hutton. They sounded like a couple of Little League dads complaining their kids wuz robbed of their innocence. Later on, Waltz didn't back off in a segment with MLB Network.
Oh, shaddap!
And I'll just add this for Davidson:
The ball in question appeared to have some serious English on it. Along with some Irish, Welsh and Scottish. All of the United Kingdom. Like the so-called "Magic Bullet" from the JFK assassination, the ball seemed to waggle across the third-base bag on an uneven trajectory — as if opposing magnets were fighting over it.
One previously unasked question: Are we sure the left-field line at Sun Life Stadium is straight?
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