For years, I have loved listening to baseball on the radio.
Growing up in the 1960s, I always tuned into the Houston Astros broadcasts on, if I remember correctly, on KTBB or KDOK, and occasionally I could pick up the St. Louis Cardinals games on KMOX.
My listening habits changed when the Washington Senators moved to Arlington and became the Texas Rangers in 1972. There were many nights I would listen Dick Risenhoover on WBAP before the local stations started carrying the games. The names I remember — Bill Gogolewski, Steve Foucault, Dave Nelson, Jeff Burroughs, Tom Grieve and my favorite, Toby Harrah.
Anyway, fast forward to Tuesday night, and while returning from our The Zone photo shoot in Lindale, I was taking in the game on The Team radio station.
Even at 63 years old, I live and die for the Rangers. While I was not happy that the White Sox tied the game at 6-6 in the Tuesday game, I was elated to listen to Matt Hicks' call of former Ranger Elvis Andrus being tagged out at the plate on a toss from Travis Jankowski to catcher Jonah Heim.
Sidenote: The Rangers' remarkable improvement on defense as been a key to their turnaround.
Back to Tuesday, I arrived home, petted by dog Jack, and then turned on my computer and find the Rangers are behind 7-6 going to the ninth.
I was preplexed and turned on the radio where the Rangers' broadcasters were trying to explain that Andrus was called safe when the initial call was overturned by replay.
After viewing the play on TV, I still didn't understand. It appeared Heim was not blocking the plate and he did his best matador act by swiping his glove to tag out Andrus, while staying out of the way.
MLB's supervisor explanation from the replay center stated that, "after reviewing all relevant angles," the replay official "definitively determined that the catcher was in violation of the home plate collision rule."
"The catcher's initial positioning was illegal and his subsequent actions while not in possession of the ball hindered and impeded the runner's path to home plate," the explanation reads.
Are we sure the replay official saw the same thing everyone else in American saw?
Heim's foot was planted on the home plate corner while the rest of his body was to the side of the plate. The foot, however, wasn't in front of the plate. In fact, Andrus' hand touched the plate before it ever reached Heim's foot.
Replay shows little evidence that Andrus' path to the plate was fully blocked by Heim's foot.
Maybe the replay official got it mixed up and was actually viewing a play in San Francisco with San Diego Padres catcher Austin Nola on home plate and tagging out the Giants' Austin Slater after a throw from third baseman Manny Machado.
That is the only explaination that is plausable.
As one would think, Rangers manager Bruce Bochy, a former catcher, was not happy.
“For that call to be made, I’m dumbfounded,” Bochy said. “It’s absolutely one of the worst calls I’ve ever seen and it was done by replay. I just don't get it. I don't care how many times they'll try to explain it. You can't do that in that situation. It's a shame. It's embarrassing, really.
“There was never any contact with the catcher. It was a sweep tag. I don't get it. I really don't. Again, I'm shocked. Jonah did a great job there. The throw took him to the left a little bit, sweep tag. I'm lost on this one. That's a tough one to take.”
Baseball needs to use a little common sense on these replays.
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