This one came from my eight year-old. Yes, I let him stay up, and in the top of the 6th we both were bothered by how awful the field looked and how hard it was raining. After B.J. Upton reached first on a "hit" (under normal circumstances Jimmy Rollins fields the ball and throws him out), my son watched Cole Hamels move to first to keep Upton close. The rain kept on coming. The basepaths and the entire field were a mess.
So my son observed, "Dad, why doesn't Cole Hamels keep on making his move to first until they call the game?"
Smart kid. The field was a mess, and there's nothing in the rule book that says that Hamels can't move to first, oh, say 50 times until the rain is so bad that the field is such a mess that even Bud Selig would have to call the game. Now, of course they weren't going to end the Series on a suspended game (although I'm not clear that the rules actually provide for any other result when one team is leading), but at least the Phillies would have gone into the suspension with their momentum intact and up 2-1. What was Bud Selig going to do after Hamels moved to first 25 times? Invoke the "best interests in baseball" clause and tell the umpire to tell Hamels he'd get fined and suspended if he didn't start pitching?
Somehow, somewhere, one of the best managers of all-time, John McGraw, is smiling.
Because that's precisely what he would have done.
And with all the statheads and baseball minds in the Phillies' dugout, I'm surprised no one thought of it.
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2 comments:
Not to defend Selig at all, but did he really have a choice??
Yes, he did.
Remember, this is the guy who overlooked and whiffed on the steroids era and, among other things, made a mess of the All-Star game (and almost caused Brad Lidge's arm to get blown out in the process).
The weather forecast was abysmal. He tortured the home fans on Saturday night -- I was there until 2 a.m. They shouldn't have let the game begin.
Instead of making a courageous decision that might have cost him some face with Fox, he threw the Philadelphia fans under the bus for the second time in three days. We showed our mettle by staying -- in full force -- until 2 a.m. on Sunday. Instead of even apologizing for that debacle, he humiliated us again.
Yes, he did have a choice. He just made the wrong one, as we've come to expect from him.
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