I think it silly to assert that the Swisher call was an “obvious” makeup call. That assumes you are inside the umpire’s head. Certainly it may have been a makeup call. It may have been intentional or it may have been sub-conscious. But it also may simply have been a coincidental error. There is not one bit of tangible evidence that it was a makeup call, not even a pattern of such coincidences, just the coincidence itself.
This kind of sloppy thinking pollutes public discourse. It encourages jumping to conclusions, assuming they are valid conclusions and then building attitudes and viewpoints based on those non-facts.

Craig, didn’t you know that the umps were fixing the game for both teams?

Oh, and there’s nothing pointless about today’s day off.  It allows the Yankees to avoid using Chad Gaudin for anything other than mop-up duty, and for that I am quite grateful.  I’m already worried about how Game Four of the World Series plays out.  If Girardi doesn’t start pulling double switches in the sixth inning of Game Three and burn through his entire pen, it might be a game where a bunch of relievers go two innings a piece.  Gaudin will get murdered by Philly’s lefties.  Assuming availability, I’d prefer something along the lines of an Ace for three, Robertson for two, Joba for two, Hughes for two sort of game, with Coke and/or Marte strategically deployed against the lefties Charlie Manuel so accommodatingly clumps together.

Oh come on, it was a joke.

Of course it’s about the network.  It sucks that we have scheduled November baseball in the Northeast.  It just so happens that the stretched out schedule has been kind to the Yanks, however.  Given that the schedule has been known for some time, there’s obviously been much talk of how they’ll handle it for the past month or so.  While I try my best to be objective, I do see things through the perspective of my team.

My wife made the same point last night, Alex.  I pointed out that the missed pickoff of Swisher was yet another example of a blown call by an ump this fall, and she said, “Well, didn’t you just say the umpire got that last call right?”

I’ll give the home plate ump credit, and the announcers even mentioned how good his positioning was (even they’re good sometimes), but shouldn’t we expect excellence from the best of the best umpires on the planet?

I would like to point out that the umpire at home made a great call on the two run single by Melky.  Real time, I thought Cano was out at home, but after the replay you could see that the tag never touched him. So it’s not ALL bad is it?

From the initial replay they showed, it looked like Cano was out by a mile, but then they showed that second replay and amazingly the tag missed Cano by inches. 

Lots of strange calls in that game between the whole Swisher missed call & blown call, that strange missed double play with Cano and Posada*, and the umpiring “conference” the umpire behind the plate and Sciosia had.

* Rob Neyer had a post on his blog about this earlier today.  Why didn’t any of the other umpires help Tim McClellen on this call?  Cano was a good 2’ from the bag when he was tagged by Napoli.  Also, why the F didn’t Cano run to the bag.  If both are standing on 3rd, isn’t only one of them out?

Yeah, he said he thought he was on the bag.

I think we all have to accept that instant replay (whether it’s in the NFL or MLB), is designed primarily for preventing situations where the TV broadcast repeatedly shows an umpiring/refereeing mistake.  We have to let go of the idea that replay is intended to provide accurate results on the field.  If it were, MLB or the NFL would be putting up fixed cameras for the sole purpose of capturing the plays.  Instead, it’s designed to ensure that nothing captured by the TV broadcast shows a definitive mistake.

Craig, I’m pretty sure the reverse vampires and freemasons were working with the Rand Corporation, not to mention the saucer people, all in a fiendish plot to develop Thanksgiving baseball.

Actually, if Bud Selig was one of the saucer people, that would explain a lot.