Judging the Royals

Games » Detroit Tigers

Lee Judge

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Thanks to the magic of cable television…

I had to score this one off the radio. The cable company and I will have a talk tomorrow about who screwed up (of course, all the digital readouts in my house are flashing 12:00…12:00…12:00…so the odds are about even on who is at fault).

So I didn’t see Callaspo’s baserunning screw-up in the seventh. Two outs, he’s on second, Maier’s on first, Kendall hits a ball to short. The shortstop goes to second for the force, but Maier beats it out.

Unfortunately, Callaspo got too far around third and was thrown out. I scored it as a mental mistake, not getting picked off third (which I think Coach Polk wanted reserved for pickoffs from the pitcher and catcher…another one of the 2,000 questions I wished I’d asked him when we were talking).

I had this same play happen in front of me in a Senior League game. I was coaching third and Danny Jackson came in hot, blew past me and headed for home. The first baseman dropped the throw from short and Danny was safe on a bang-bang play at home. He told me later he’d been taught to just keep going in that situation in case there was a misplay at first.

The difference between his play and Callaspo’s is the ball was not thrown across the infield, which would make for two long throws and give the runner coming home time to score. Someone, Callaspo or the third base coach, needed to be aware that the ball had stayed in the middle of the infield and advancing to home wasn’t going to happen.

I stared really hard at my Philco radio, but still couldn’t see if the third base coach was waving Callaspo home or trying to get him stopped. Alberto, if it’s Dave’s fault, tell him he’s killing you.

Start an office pool…

On how soon Betancourt will drop a pop fly. I heard the description and then saw a replay. He caught it off to the side and lower than his head. This means his head was moving to follow the flight of the ball, which makes his vision unclear. Willie Mays’ basket catch (before your time, kids) not withstanding, you want to catch the ball above your head so the ball and glove are in your range of vision the entire time.

Trust me; I’ve dropped enough pop flies to know.