Holiday never touched the plate

It isn’t so much that he never touched the plate and the call was wrong. Umpires are humans. The human element of the game is important. We as fans shouldn’t make excuses. The team had their chances. That’s life.

But according to this website, ESPN is trying to cover up the bad call. How egregious. It doesn’t surprise me though. ESPN has been anything but an unbiased source of ‘news’ for as long as I can remember. They exist to entertain. It is why they waste time “who’s nowing” rather than conducting and explaining research on evaluation methods.

MLB is apparently in cover up mode as well, but the reasoning there is a little more obvious.

It is probably bad for the business of everyone involved if people learn that umpires make mistakes. Especially in favor of the darling team with the great backstory.

R. EDIT:

I’ve always had a problem with the idea of “human error” being part of the game. I’m not going to argue that it’s not, but the humans making errors should be the players. Human error in that game should’ve been reserved for Matt Holliday breaking in on Giles’ double or Peavy failing to show up. It shouldn’t include Tim McClellan blowing a titanic call because he was out of position.

I think it should also be noted that McClellan’s call was only the second time that weekend that the Padres had gotten screwed. That Friday, against Milwaukee, Bruce Froemming missed a very obvious call at first base that luckily didn’t matter thanks to a timely double play. That’s the same Bruce Froemming who defended Mike Winters after he went after Milton Bradley. It’s quite the coincidence, isn’t it?

HOWEVER, I’m saying this the night after the Yankees were on the wrong side of three bad calls in a game they would go on to lose against the Indians. Shit happens. Just ask Josh Paul or Tony Tarasco.