quote:
Just watched the strike calls on papi. Unbelievably bad. If the league suspends papi or the manager, I'll be pissed.
While this I don't want this to come across as harping on this incident, I watch the Sox on NESN feeds. Last night the Sox color commentator, Jerry Remy, offered his take on the incident - which I thought was interesting enough to share.
He said that when he was playing (Remy), umpires would visit each dugout before the game to talk with the players and manager. One game during his playing days he had an incident where Remy was angry over a check swing called a third strike. He "had some words he couldn't repeat on air" with the 3rd base ump who called the check swing a swing (Remy was a left handed hitter).
Before the next game the ump came to him and said something to the effect that "we're going to get you today!" Remy dragged a bunt. The ump told him "here's the good news, the ball was foul. The bad news is that you were out of the batters box when you hit it, so you are out!"
He said that Papi's strike three call was the umpire getting even for the outburst over the strike two call. They showed a replay when Papi got run and the umpire had a smirk on his face (the umps mask was off and it was pretty obvious the ump knew Ortiz wasn't going to remain cool after the strike two call). Remy said that the umpire made it personal, which was common, when he was playing but not as common in today's game because of replay and the fact that umpires are regularly reviewed. He used this incident to illustrate that it still happens as the call and ejection was clearly personal in nature rather than just a bad call.
