Top 7: Worst Playoff Umpiring Mistakes

Starting this week, each Top 7 column will be enhanced by the newest addition to the JoeSportsFan Radio Network, Seven Minutes with Jason Major, where our Top 7 guru rants on the current topic, touches on previous lists and also vehemently defends his Cardinals bias…all in around seven minutes.

Ever since the Cardinals were eliminated from the postseason, it’s very hard to care a whole lot about what happened since.  This is only true in years where the Cards make the postseason—had they not made it, I probably would have watched a good deal of the NLCS and ALCS and probably all of the World Series.  Graciously though, the MLB umpires have given all of us depressed fans a reason to tune back in—horrible calls!  Horrible calls are the most perversely entertaining instances in baseball, so long as your team is not involved.  It’s the baseball equivalent of atrocious quarterbacking in the NFL.

Several umps have gone Frank Drebin and hopefully it’s in the back of all of their heads now, and we can see some even worse calls in the World Series.   One can dream.  In honor of potentially getting another entry this year, the Top 7 looks at the worst playoff baseball calls of this era.

7. A.J. Pierzynski
Sometimes you know it by the umpire, sometimes you know it by the player in question.  The A.J. Pierzynski play is probably known by his name because he himself is so notorious for being in the middle of random plays (like getting punched in the face by Michael Barrett).  Pierzynski swung and missed for strike three, but decided to run to first just for the hell of it in a play straight out of Bronco League.  The umpire bought it!

Doug Eddings “never called him out” (though he did clutch his fist) and allowed Pierzynski to reach first base, where he eventually scored the winning run to tie the 2005 ALCS at a game each.

6. Angel Hernandez
He’s only on here because I am sure that he has blown a playoff call.  Probably the most surprising thing about some of these calls is that good old Angel hasn’t been running towards the play after it happened so he can make sure everyone knows the reason why they are watching the games—him of course!  Audiences pay admission to watch him umpire baseball, and that’s why he tries to toss players, sprint towards arguments, and seemingly intentionally make horrific calls just so he’s the center of attention.

If you happen to see that he is working a game, you can be nearly certain that you’ll see him get into the action at some point in the game.###MORE###

5. Phil Cuzzi
He is a poor man’s Angel Hernandez.  He is now most notorious for staring at a Joe Mauer double that was clearly fair that he called foul, but let’s not let die his other greatest hit.  In 2005, he threw Jim Edmonds out of Game 4 of the 2005 NLCS with a full count, two outs, and a runner on.  Edmonds had a good reason to be annoyed: strike 2 was called on a pitch that was almost at his eyes.  This was the capper on a day when Cuzzi, as the great Bernie Miklasz said, may as well have been flipping a coin for whether a pitch was a ball or a strike.

Had Edmonds walked as he should have, it would have brought up Albert Pujols, who could have had his Lidge moment one game early (and one that would have tied the series).  Prior to the entire 2009 NLDS, this is the most frustrating game I can ever remember as a fan.

4. Tim McClelland
By the simple measure of “most horrific call,” the one from Tuesday night’s Yankees/Angels games may be #1 in the regular season or the playoffs.  Can you ever remember seeing a worse call than that?  Two guys were clearly well off the same base, and one guy was called out.  An underrated moment is that McClelland also decided to call Nick Swisher out just because he felt like it in the same inning because he wasn’t even close to watching Swisher tag up from third base.  It’s almost like he thought “well if they’re appealing, they must know something, so I’ll call him out.”

Completely bizarre.  Then for more good measure, an entirely different ump clearly blew a pick-off attempt at second base.  It’s probably the worst umped inning in postseason history.

3. Jeffrey Maier
Could one blame Jeffrey Maier for starting the “Derek Jeter is Jesus in the Postseason” storyline?  If Tony Tarasco catches the ball, the first-ever clutch bomb in the ALCS by Jeter is an out, and maybe it changes everything.  By the way, what happens to the A-Rod storyline now that he has like 11 homers in the playoffs?  Who will be the first sportswriter that gives Jeter credit for it?  Who will be the first to come up with some magic formula as to why he started hitting?

What do those who say that he “wasn’t clutch” and “couldn’t hit in October” say about it now?  I am sure that they are admitting their mistakes.

2. Eric Gregg
At least once a year I plead for someone to release the tape of Game 5 of the 1997 NLCS between the Braves and the Marlins.  I have only seen the 16-foot wide strike zone of Eric Gregg on one day—the live game and subsequent highlights.  Did MLB destroy all evidence that this happened?  Livan Hernandez winning the NLCS and World Series MVP was a great story for the media and all, but did he deserve a plate from Super Mario 3 World 4?  There was one pitch in particular, the last strike to Fred McGriff, that I remember has so hilariously outside that it almost seemed like a joke, and McGriff seemed to think so too.

But memories can adjust to fit what you want to remember, so I really need to see the tape—am I remembering this correctly?  Would I be disappointed if I saw it again?  Maybe it’s best not to see it.

1. Don Denkinger
There may be worse calls, but none other than Denkinger that you could legitimately say may have altered the outcome of a potential World Series-clinching game.

It’s like Bill Buckner—his out would not have ended the World Series, but it was a World Series-clinching.

In horrific plays and horrific calls, those two stand alone (though Tony Fernandez gets a huge pass amongst non-Cleveland baseball fans).

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