In this age of instant communication and an extraordinary number of sources of distraction, sitting down to watch an entire sporting event on television is a commitment. For some, it is only done for big games, where something is on the line beyond the mundane won-loss record. For others, myself included, it is an activity that occurs a number of times a week. I can’t say that I spend an entire baseball game, for example, focused on nothing but the game, though. I have a family, and I also have a laptop that is rarely off. Other things are grabbing at my attention, but I still manage to watch most of any game I set out to enjoy. Rarely does the game end with me feeling any kind of regret for having spent the time, even if the result was not to my liking. Tuesday night, I would bet that any Pittsburgh Pirates fans who made the six-and-a-half hour investment in the team’s game against the Atlanta Braves were pretty unhappy at 1:50 AM, when the game finally ended on one of the worst calls I have ever seen.

Julio Lugo, an infielder for the Braves, had walked with one out in the bottom of the 19th inning. He moved to 3rd base on Jordan Schafer’s base hit. Scott Proctor, a relief pitcher, then came up for only his second at-bat of the season (his first was earlier in the game). He bounced a ball to Pirates third baseman Pedro Alvarez, who fired home as Lugo tried to score. The throw beat Lugo by a large margin, and catcher Michael McKenry had the plate well-blocked. Lugo’s slide necessarily came up short, and McKenry applied the tag. Lugo popped up and stepped on home plate out of habit, while McKenry turned to throw to first, where he would have doubled-off Proctor, who had fallen down on his way to the base, and the inning would have been over. The throw never happened, because umpire Jerry Meals inexplicably called Lugo safe, which ended the game.

I have watched every available replay a number of times, and I see no sign of a missed tag or anything else that could explain Meals’ call. I have to assume that he was tired and just wanted to go to sleep. Even if he felt that the swipe tag was questionable, I would think he would have had to be absolutely certain that McKenry somehow missed the tag before making that call. There was no discussion with the other umpires, though, and there was certainly no replay review, which Major League Baseball has yet to institute for anything other than homerun calls. Instead, Meals walked off the field, ignoring the meltdown that Pirates manager Clint Hurdle, along with most of his team, was experiencing. The Pirates, who are a very unlikely participant in the division race for the National League Central, had to count this one in the loss column, which could be significant as the season winds down. Lugo, despite all the evidence to the contrary, maintains that he was safe, which should get him a suspension for idiocy, as far as I am concerned.

I admit that I did not watch this game. I am not even sure it was on TV in Philadelphia. A couple of months back, though, I watched a Phillies game that also went to the 19th inning. I was exhausted by the time it was over, so I can only imagine how the players and the umpires felt. The Phils won that game, so I was spared the feeling of disappointment that would have accompanied a loss, magnified, no doubt, by the length of the game. If it had ended the way the Pirates game ended, Jerry Meals would have moved even further up my Worst Umpires list.

Bad sports, continued:

2) Jeret “Speedy” Anderson, a skier who won a silver medal in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, committed suicide in Utah this week. He had been arrested for drunk driving the day before he shot himself.

3) Former New York Yankees pitcher Hideki Irabu, who last pitched in the majors in 2002, was found hanging in his home in Los Angeles on Wednesday. He was 42, was married, and had two children.

4) This was an exciting week for fans of the NFL, which I’ll mention below, but there was at least one head-scratcher in the many free-agent deals struck with players. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signed punter Matt Koenen to a six-year, 19.5 million dollar deal with $6.5 million guaranteed. Not only is this a huge amount of money to give a punter, but by any normal measure of punters, Koenen isn’t even a very good one. He averaged 40.7 yards per punt last season, which ranked him 30th in the league. Bizarre.

Good sports:

1) The NFL is back, and not a minute too soon. The league and the players came to an agreement on a new Collective Bargaiing Agreement last week, ensuring that there would be a full season of professional football this year. The rest of the week was quite an exciting one, as all of the usual contract activity that would have occurred over the past four months had to be condensed into less than a week.

2) One of the big NFL contract deals made this week was between the Indianapolis Colts and their long-time quarterback, Peyton Manning. The team signed Manning to a 5-year, $90 million contract extension, resulting in an annual salary, $18 million, that ties Tom Brady’s for most in the NFL. The interesting part is that Jim Irsay, the owner of the Colts, wanted to pay Manning more, hoping to make him the highest paid player in league history. Manning actually told them he wanted less, and wanted them to use the remainder to help strengthen the team. That’s a pretty good sentiment. Sure, he is still making $18 million per year, but it is clearly not all about ego for that guy.

3) NASCAR driver Paul Menard got his first career Sprint Cup victory on Sunday with a win at the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway. He won on a fuel mileage gamble, and if the race had been half a lap longer, he would have been overtaken by hard charging Jeff Gordon, who came from way back to nearly win the race after a late green-flag pit stop.

Bad sports, good sports appears every Monday

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Alan Spoll

Alan Spoll is a software quality assurance director from the suburbs of Philadelphia where he lives with his wonderful wife and children. He has spent his entire life as a passionate fan of the Eagles, Phillies, Sixers, Flyers, and Penn State. Recent Phillies success aside, you will understand his natural negativity. Follow me on Twitter - @DocAlan02

Latest posts by Alan Spoll (Posts)

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