Bite me, ESPN: ranking the best World Series

[HowAboutThat]

40 minutes ago, bobmc said:

To be clear - was this journalism or "just sports writing"?

I'm 77 and was alive for the series W's and L's, of course.  I cannot remember one play clearly save for the Ron Swoboda catch in '69 when I was still considered a NY emigre to the DC area (arrived in '66 and bonded with an Orioles fan from GA) but fully freed from any NY fandom.  I hated the Mets except for Choo Choo Coleman and Casey.

 

And @Frobby, is your title to the thread NSFW?  Axing for the sensitive Sams.

I think there’s very little journalism in sports, although there can be some very good sports writing. I think the very title indicates that this is just off-season fluff.

[drjohnnyfeva]

As a kid of the 1970's, my hatred of the Yankees is well ingrained by now.  I happily vote WS where the Skanks lost pretty high.  Not higher than those our Orioles won, perhaps, but no Yankee win would occur before either of those two criteria are met.  And then there is every other team in the league to consider ahead of any NY win.  I don't think a Yankee win would even occur in my list...

Sadly, it looks like Scott Van Pelt only had one measly vote.

[WillyM]

23 hours ago, Philip said:

Don’t you remember, in 2012, Nate Mclouth hit a ball that grazed the foul pole for a Home run, but it was called foul. it would have changed the game, though it might not have changed the outcome. 

I remember it now, especially with the video clip that SteveA provided.  I remember watching replay after replay and never feeling sure about whether it had hit the pole or not.

There was a play this past season where Santander hit one that barely grazed the right field foul pole at Philadelphia.  The first base ump initially called it foul, but with no fans in the stands, you could hear a metallic sound as the ball touched the pole, and Ben McDonald immediately said "What'd that hit?"  The play was reviewed and eventually ruled to be a home run.  I'm not sure whether the replay officials in New York made their ruling because they had access to audio and could hear the ball hit the pole, or because they were able to detect a deflection in the ball's path.

Too bad there were 50,000 fans yelling at Yankee Stadium in 2012 and nobody could hear whether McLouth's ball hit the pole.

[Frobby]

1 hour ago, WillyM said:

I remember it now, especially with the video clip that SteveA provided.  I remember watching replay after replay and never feeling sure about whether it had hit the pole or not.

Agreed.   

[OFFNY]

2 hours ago, WillyM said:

 

I remember it now, especially with the video clip that SteveA provided. I remember watching replay after replay, and never feeling sure about whether it had hit the pole or not.

There was a play this past season where Santander hit one that barely grazed the right-field foul pole at Philadelphia. The first base ump initially called it foul, but with no fans in the stands you could hear a metallic sound as the ball touched the pole, and Ben McDonald immediately said "What'd that hit?" The play was reviewed, and eventually ruled to be a home run. I'm not sure whether the replay officials in New York made their ruling because they had access to audio and could hear the ball hit the pole, or because they were able to detect a deflection in the ball's path.

Too bad that there were 50,000 fans yelling at Yankee Stadium in 2012, and nobody could hear whether McLouth's ball hit the pole.

 

o

 

3 years before the Jeffrey Meier incident, Ben McDonald on the mound in yet another controversial home run when the Orioles were [playing the Yankees.

During the 1993 pennant race, McDonald was going to-to-toe with the Scott Kamieniecki in a 0-0 pitcher's duel in the bottom of the 8th inning. With Don Mattingly at the plate and the bases empty, a 16 year-old Yankee fan from Connecticut named Tim McKenzie stole a home run in the right-field stands from Mark McLemore.

Like Jeffrey Maier 3 years later, McKenzie reached over the railing to snatch the ball away from McLemore.

In a post-game interview immediately following the game, Mattingly said that the kid "made a great catch" when he was shown a replay of the theft. Also, Mattingly met and shook hands with the McKenzie in the bowels of Yankee Stadium the next day.

 

 

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1916&dat=19930817&id=AQYhAAAAIBAJ&sjid=Z3YFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1607,2158095

 

 

In the photo, it states:

 

A GIFT: - Don Mattingly, left, shakes hands with Tim McKenzie at Yankee Stadium on Monday, prior to autographing the baseball that McKenzie is holding. The 16 year-old Durham, CT resident caught the ball over the railing, but Mattingly was given a home run in the Yankees' 1-0 win over the Orioles.

 

For his efforts, McDonald was credited with a complete-game loss, ceding that lone run in his 8 innings on the mound that afternoon.

 

o

[WillyM]

I was at that game in 1993.

I was seated in the lower deck of Yankee Stadium on the third-base side, looking out toward right field.  I saw the play from pretty much the same angle that the umpire would have seen it.

And I didn't know, until I read about it in the paper the next day, what had happened, because I completely lost track of the ball as it descended against the backdrop of three decks of seats filled with fans.  I assumed, since Mattingly jogged around the bases, that it had landed in the seats beyond the wall.

Perhaps the umpire, from his vantage point on the field, should have been close enough to see the play better than I could.  But I could understand why it could have been tough for him.

[Number5]

3 hours ago, WillyM said:

I was at that game in 1993.

I was seated in the lower deck of Yankee Stadium on the third-base side, looking out toward right field.  I saw the play from pretty much the same angle that the umpire would have seen it.

And I didn't know, until I read about it in the paper the next day, what had happened, because I completely lost track of the ball as it descended against the backdrop of three decks of seats filled with fans.  I assumed, since Mattingly jogged around the bases, that it had landed in the seats beyond the wall.

Perhaps the umpire, from his vantage point on the field, should have been close enough to see the play better than I could.  But I could understand why it could have been tough for him.

It can be a difficult call for a second base umpire.  He has no angle to clearly see if the fan was reaching out over the fence.  In the playoff game however, the right field umpire, Richie Garcia, had a clear view of the fan reaching out, as he was at the wall looking up, and frankly absolutely had to know that the fan interfered.  Despicable.  It came out some years later that Garcia had been given a slap on the wrist for owing money to illegal bookmakers.  No excuse for his not being fired.  Ban a player/manager for gambling, but give a warning to an umpire?  Ridiculous.  He ended up actually being promoted, of all things, to umpiring supervisor, only to then be finally fired under another cloud of suspicion.

[incubus]

On 10/20/2020 at 1:04 PM, Oriole1940 said:

No surprize  here.  ESPN, the failed Socialist sports network would come up with garbage like that.  I cannot remember the time I watched ESPN, and millions of others feel the same way.  

What exactly about ESPN is socialist? It always cracks me up when older people who lived through the red scare use socialism or communism as some catch all fear-trigger word for things they don’t like, despite not knowing what either word actually means. Man the US education system has failed us.