The Chris Moeller Archives

Boston fans (and starting pitcher Jake Peavy) can blame the umpires, but they're only showing their ignorance of the rule book. It's a good thing we have trained and experienced umpires on the scene. The defensive team is not allowed to set up an obstacle course for the runners to have to navigate. Did Will Middlebrooks attempt to obstruct Allen Craig? It's common to see defensive players try to keep a sliding runner from getting up quickly, but even considering that, it didn't look to me at all like he was trying to do anything but stay laying down. Still, as the umpires explained after the game, by rule, intent means nothing. 

If Middlebrooks made a mistake, it was diving for an uncatchable ball. Would you or I have laid out to catch the pass? Absolutely. He's giving his all on the field. That's why it's such a crappy way to lose. But it's not that way because the umpires blew a call. Think instead about a batter who comes up with the bases loaded, two out, and hits the ball on the screws, only to have it go straight into the glove of a defender. He did everything right, but sometimes baseball just ain't fair. Bloops fall in. Line drives die in leather. "All-out" defenders obstruct runners. The shame is that the third baseman drew the obstruction, and the formal "error," when it was the catcher who threw the errant ball.

Imagine if the obstruction had not been called. As a Cardinals fan, I recognized that game to be won as soon as the catcher Saltalamacchia (I've been so focused on nailing down his last name that I didn't catch his first) threw that ball wide of third base and down into the left field corner. We're going crazy at Busch Stadium, or next to our generally-disinterested spouses in our living rooms, only to see Middlebrooks' legs come up at third causing the already-hobbled Craig to take a spiller in the basepath. If next year's instant replay could have potentially changed anything in this situation, it could only have been if the umpires somehow had missed the obstruction originally, and then added it on (correctly) after the fact. And if you think that the Red Sox were angry last night, imagine what the scene would have looked like if the obstruction had not been called until after Cardinals manager Mike Matheny threw his red flag.

In the meantime, Allen Craig becomes the new Kirk Gibson-- the broken-down, but valiant hero delivering World Series theatrics. And he was maybe even more Gibson than Gibson. The gimpy Dodger had the luxury of jogging around the bases after he swatted Dennis Eckersley's back-door slider into the right-field pavilion of Dodger Stadium 25 years ago this month. Craig had to barrel home like a crazed mad man. Despite the obstruction, his run was not in vain because the rule states that the play continues, and Craig has to get close enough to home in that situation to prove that he would have scored without the obstruction. The Red Sox forced our wounded hero through an obstacle course during his journey, which they're not allowed by rule to do, but you won't hear the Cardinals or their fans complain about it today. We know that sometimes baseball just ain't fair.