First off, let's call a spade a spade. Chuck Becker blew the call. What call am I talking about? I'll get to that in a moment. I knew that he blew the call. Wes knew he blew the call. Everyone at Blair Field--including some affiliated with the Flyers--knew he blew the call. Steve Yeager and David Ramirez absolutely knew that he blew the call. O.C. left fielder Mark Okano knew firsthand that he blew the call.
So what call am I talking about? Here's what happened...David Ramirez stepped to the plate for the Armada with the Crew trailing 5-4 and he smashed a ball to the Lucille's BBQ sign on the left field wall. One Armada runner scored and Ramirez ended up on second base. The crowd was going crazy. Then, umpire Chuck Becker ruled that the ball had been caught.
How could it have been caught when Okano bent down and picked it up off the ground? How could it have been caught when shortstop David Bacani ran out to shallow left waving his arms for the cutoff throw? Manager Steve Yeager went ballistic and Ramirez was none too happy either. Everyone at Blair Field knew that Becker botched the call and later in the game, Becker admitted to someone in an Armada uniform that he did in fact blow the call.
A lot of good that does the Armada now. That would have tied the game at 5 apiece and left Ramirez on second base with two outs. Instead, the Armada had to take the field knowing that they had just been hosed.
While I appreciate that Becker later realized that he made a mistake, it doesn't help a whole lot when Long Beach lost by one run. The one run that GBL Umpire Chuck Becker took away from us. Bear in mind that not only did he take that run away from us, he also didn't allow the Armada to continue with the rally, which could have brought at least one more run (which should be noted, could have been the WINNING RUN) across the plate.
Nice job, Chuck. See 'ya next time...
5 comments:
Not much you can do about it at this point. Sucks that it happened, yet something like this is not anything new (ie, Monday's "do-over" against Yuma in the top of the first inning).
GBL UMPIRES ARE IN THIS LEAGUE BECAUSE THEY TOO ARE CHASING A DREAM OF OFFICIATING AT A HIGHER LEVEL OF BASEBALL. JUST LIKE THE BALLPLAYERS ARE CHASING A DREAM OF PLAYING AT A HIGHER LEVEL. THERE WILL BE MORE BAD AND/OR MISSES CALLS DURING THE SEASON. NEXT TIME IT MIGHT GO IN FAVOR OF THE ARMADA. THEN WE WON'T BE COMPLAINING SO MUCH. WILL WE? LET'S KEEP IT ALL IN CHECK. LET'S LEAVE INTANT REPLAY OUT OF BASEBALL. GO ARMADA!!!
All I've got to say is that I was next to the Flyers dugout on the 1st base line and EVEN I could see it was dropped... And I just sell tickets.
pphhhhtttt!!!
I've seen Chuck Becker in a lot of games (GBL and college) and in general I think he does a pretty good job. Behind the plate he seems to be more consistent than most when it comes to calling balls & strikes. But, boy, was that a bone-headed call! There were two other umpires at the game and they could have instantly said something and reversed the call, but they didn't, and for that they both deserve some of the blame (i.e., home plate umpire Sergio Padilla and first base umpire Rod Murphy).
But, if it wasn't for calls like this we couldn't call the games "minor league." :)
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