Leave No Stone Turned

I spent much of Tuesday afternoon fretting about the general brainlessness that passes for sportswriting (I'm looking at you, Buzz). In the end, I decided I had wasted enough time just thinking about it. Then I watched the Giants-Dodgers game. Specifically, the postgame show on Comcast, with Greg Papa, F.P. Santangelo and Amy Gutierrez. My brain still has not recovered.

 This squad would not shut up about the ball Fred Lewis managed to fling into the seats and could not understand how the umpires could rule the way they did. Lewis fielded the ball in short left, brought the glove up to exchange the ball to his throwing hand and in the process flung it toward the stands. It hit the top of the little wall there, Lewis grabbed it and tossed it in. Umps say: out of play, two bases for the runners.

 The structure of the show went something like this: Loss, Cain, Papa on ruling, F.P. on ruling, Papa, F.P. making stuff up about Joe Torre's ground rules, Papa ruling, F.P. ruling, Papa ruling, Amy, Hi Matt!, what about that ruling, Cain on ruling, back to Papa on ruling, F.P. making things up about ground rules, but the same as a few minutes ago, Papa on ruling.

 No one cracked a rule book. No one seemed to have a clue. Here's some help.

 From the rule book, definitions:

FOUL TERRITORY is that part of the playing field outside the first and third base lines extended to the fence and perpendicularly upwards.

 So as soon as the ball crossed the front plane of that fence, it was out of play.

 7.05 Each runner including the batter-runner may, without liability to be put out, advance --

(f) Two bases, if a fair ball bounces or is deflected into the stands outside the first or third base foul lines; (snip)

 This seems clear cut enough. In fact, that's what the Dodgers PR people told the broadcasters, apparently relaying what the umps said. As for F.P.'s weird ground rule theory, there are exactly two ground rules at Dodger Stadium. You can look them up, but here they are:

 BACKSTOP AREA Batted ball striking camera on top of backstop: Dead Ball.

OUTFIELD AREA Batted ball hitting bullpen gate in either left or right field and bouncing into the seats: Home Run.

Comments

[Auto glass chandler az]

What a great game...