MLB Baseball's Tarnished Wild Card Game
It's totally amazing how one little baseball can make such a big mess in this world today, but that's exactly what happened in the first ever National league wild card game between the Atlanta Braves and the St. Louis Cardinals. It all happen when a controversial infield fly ruling drew out the anger of the Atlanta Braves fans in a late 8th inning comeback.
Now I am a true Baltimore Orioles fan from birth, and I was simply watching the end of the National league wild card game until my Oriole's game began. I started watching probably at the most interesting point in the game as well. It was the bottom of the 8th inning and St. Louis had it well under control with a 6-3 lead and one out already on the board.
But what happened next put me on the edge of my seat. Atlanta had two men on base, and the next batter popped the ball up, and it landed about 60 feet into left field. The St. Louis players both stopped short and the ball landed onto to the field at least five foot from both of them. Each player had backed off at the last moment so that the other could take it, but neither did. This was an unbelievable era on their behalf, and now all of a sudden with one out the bases are loaded. This was possibly one of the greatest comebacks in all of baseball going under way.
BUT WAIT!
Just before the ball literally dropped between St. Louis shortstop Pete Kozma and left fielder Matt Holliday, left-field umpire Sam Holbrook signaled an automatic out because of the infield fly rule. This rule is designed to prevent a team from intentionally dropping a popup in order to get extra outs with more than one runner on base, and not to benefit the team out in the field. Now all of a sudden instead of Atlanta having the bases loaded with one out, there are two outs on the board. What a ridiculous change of events. It was almost like this particular umpire didn't want the Braves to win.
I along with everyone else watching on television and a crowd of more than 52,000 Atlanta Braves fans in Turner Field couldn't quite figure out what just happened. When the fans in the stadium eventually found out what happened they let their anger spill out into the field. Fans littered the entire ball field with trash. If it wasn't bolted down, then it was thrown out onto the playing field. The fans literally hurled cups and trash which covered the field, and led to a 19-minute game delay. I'm not going to say that I support their actions, but on the other hand I'm not going to fault them either. This was a whole entire season going quickly down the drain, because of one BAD call. It looks like the ball was dropped twice in just this one play. Once by the players, and then for a second time by a questionable umpire. And to top it all off the Atlanta braves had a better record than the Cardinals, with 6 more wins. This means if MLB wouldn't have added this game this year then the Braves would have already been in the playoffs. That's something to really think about. It's in the opinion of many people out there that this one particular umpire really wanted to see Atlanta lose.
The Atlanta Braves played the remainder of the game under a protest, however Major League Baseball later denied their claim saying "It was an umpire's judgment call on the play". I figured that would happen all along. The St. Louis Cardinals went on to win the game 6-3, and thus ends Chipper Jones' career. It's amazing how one little baseball can make such a big mess, and it's a heck of a way for Major League Baseball's first ever wild card game to come to an end, and conclude. The first ever wild card game ended with the ball being dropped twice on a disputed call, and was one of baseball's biggest fiascoes. It looks like Baseball now wants to jump onto the band wagon along with the NFL's replacement referee fiasco.
Do you think if you were in Turner Field that night, that you would have tossed a can onto the field?
Baseball's not the only one who is changing things. I wanted to get this hub in, before the hub pages makes their newest changes. Starting on Monday October 8th 2012 the hub pages are going to change the status on Idled hubs or those sleeping Zzz's as everyone has come to call them. The hub pages have released the ability to choose whether or not you would like to showcase Idle Hubs on your Hub Pages Profile. This means unless you make a change then your idled hubs won't show up or be accessible from your profile page. If you want your idled hubs to appear on your profile page, then visit "My Account" and edit your profile. When that screen comes up, scroll to the very bottom. You will find an option - “Show Idle Hubs on my profile”. It is automatically set & defaulted to "NO". Click on "YES", and then update your profile. This way all of your time and hard work won't have been wasted. I realize that some of you may not want to do this, but I certainly do, and already have clicked on YES. Happy Hubbing :)
