Todd Teldon must’ve seen it coming. He must’ve been way ahead of his time.
When I was a kid, Todd was among the fastest kids in P.S. 35. Zoom.
But there was a problem. Even when Todd was out at first, he would keep running, sometimes all the way to third. Everyone liked Todd, so we would try to break the news to him gently:
“Hey, Todd, you were out at first.”
“No I wasn’t. I’m here. I’m on third.”
Not for a second would he consider he had been beaten to the painted, schoolyard base. It became a tough issue for kids to adjudicate. Todd never would take “Out!” for an answer.
So now we fast-forward, pages fast-falling from wall calendars like in old black-and-white movies, until we reach July 2014. We look in as Commodore Selig, from the bridge of MLB’s flagship, the tug McGraw, confidently orders, “Silly as she goes!”
Having reached the All-Star break — provided ESPN’s Yankees-Orioles late Sunday-nighter concludes — no team seems to have caught on to the inherent vagaries of MLB’s new, “get right” TV replay rules.
No major league team now knows what Todd Teldon knew then.
In fact, it seems no team understands that any “out,” “safe,” “fair” or “foul” call on the field is open to reversal, thus, in spite of the on-field call — especially the call of the third out of every half-inning — play should proceed in anticipation of a replay, second opinion reversal.
That’s right, more than halfway through the season, teams still don’t understand that no third out call should be presumed final, thus runners should keep running, until they score. And fielders should keep throwing and tagging out base runners until they are 100-percent sure that between three and five outs have been recorded.
Wednesday night, top of the 10th, 4-4, Yankees at Cleveland. Derek Jeter on second, Brain McCann on first, one out. Brian Roberts hits into a 3-6-1 double play to end the half-inning. Offense heads to defense, defense heads to offense.
But Yankees manager Joe Girardi, encouraged by first-base coach Mick Kelleher, contends that Cody Allen, covering at first, missed the bag. Long delay. Finally, the determination: Roberts is safe at first, thus runners on first-and-third two outs.
But though Jeter has been conditioned — for roughly 35 years — to grab his glove and head back on to the field, why not, in 2014, just keep running until he touched home? Who could dispute that he sensed that Allen had missed the bag thus the inning was still alive? That’s the very thing the replay rule determined!
Conversely, why didn’t the Cleveland third baseman or catcher, also later claiming to have sensed Allen missed first, call for the ball and tag Jeter out just as he left the field to play the bottom of the inning?
Or, now reasonably, why didn’t both sides continue to play baseball, just in case?
After all, no team can now presume the third out was made based solely on the call of an on-field ump, so keep playing! Keep playing until the runners score or until there are at least three outs! If the on-field umpires’ calls often don’t count, go, go, go!
A mockery? For sure. But an institutionalized, by-the-new-rules mockery. In 2014, there’s no better way to “get it right” than to assume that they got it wrong.
‘Exclusive’ Jets tix available — to everyone!
Why must most everything attached to the Woody Johnson Jets be tethered to see-through nonsense, especially bloated sales techniques and hollow claims?
The Jets — who once had a long, long ticket-waiting list — haven’t come close to selling out season’s tickets since moving to PSL Stadium. By now, we all know that. So why not simply advertise that there are tickets available to be purchased?
Not the Jets. This week they announced they are holding a spectacular “Pre-Sale,” through which one can buy “Exclusive Early Access” tickets!
Pre-sale? Yeah, you don’t want to buy tickets to games that were already played, do ya?
And it’s an “exclusive” opportunity, so exclusive that it’s open to all, including those ex-season’s ticket subscribers who were excluded from attending once the Jets priced them out.
Yankees-Cleveland on the radio Thursday. As my friend’s Eastern European grandmother would say in her sorta English, “Dunt esk.”
John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman, as usual, figured the score of the game was none of our business. Those times Sterling had to give it, he protected the name of the Yankees’ opponents: “At the end of 3 ½, 2-0, Yankees,” “End of five, 3-0 Yanks.”
In the bottom of the fifth, he described a fly ball hit by Asdrubal Cabrera: “Ellsbury races in. … He makes the catch! … No, he can’t make the catch. It rolls away. … Oh, he made the catch!”
Okay, standard Sterling. Been like that for 25 years — over 35, if we count Islanders and Nets radio. Give him three guesses and the third is generally the right one. Still, what exactly did Sterling see that he saw “roll away”?
ESPN confirms it got scooped
Friday, ESPN, not surprisingly, took transparently laughable partial credit for the LeBron James-back-to-Cleveland scoop by reporting its Chris Broussard “confirms” the story. Wonder if ESPN’s bosses realize ESPN is now widely recognized for its shamelessness.
♦ Got stats? Andy Pettitte picked off 97 runners during his MLB career, thus 97 times he helped record an out without a pitch registering in his oh-so-significant pitch count.
♦ Pedro DeBrito, among the greats in UConn’s extraordinary soccer tradition — a set-up man, he starred on the 1981 NCAA championship team and played on the U.S. National Team — died last weekend in Florida from injuries in a car accident. He was 55.
♦ Correction: That wasn’t, as I wrote, ESPN’s Tommy Smyth who worked Brazil-Germany beside Ian Darke, it was Steve McManaman.
♦ Redskins’ DB Tanard Jackson, Syracuse University man, has been suspended for testing dirty — a fourth time. Reminds us of the star of the football team whose midterm grades were four F’s and a D. Coach told him, “Son, I think you’re spending too much time on one subject.”