You all know AA’s stand on Homerism by now. It gets annoying occasionally, but most of the time it’s just ridiculous and funny (I.E.- Suzyn Waldman). Well, I’ve got multiple emails recently regarding one particular Homer, and yesterday he finally went over the top.
Calling the Sox-Cubs game on Sunday one Hawk Harrelson took his homerism to such a ridiculous level that he almost cursed on-air three times. Even after the play was correctly explained to him he stayed on his rant. Here’s the MLB description of the play….
With runners on first and second and nobody out, Mark DeRosa lined a pitch from Boone Logan over the head of right fielder Rob Mackowiak. Felix Pie, the runner on second, moved back to the base to tag, while Pagan, the runner on first, went full steam ahead. This confusion eventually led to a series of rundowns, resulting in Pagan getting nailed at second by shortstop Juan Uribe and then Pie getting tagged out at home by third baseman Josh Fields.
That odd double play didn’t hold up. Second-base umpire Ed Rapuano had signaled obstruction against Uribe when Pagan ran into him at second, leading to all three runners being ruled safe after a play was made on Pagan. Guillen tried to get an explanation on the call for a few minutes, following a long discussion amongst the umpires, before West tossed him.
“He got two outs and he ended up getting no outs, and that’s why Ozzie said, ‘You’re just going to have to kick me out. I can’t take that,'” explained West, the crew chief. “He didn’t use any profanity; he was very gentlemanly. He is going to stick up for his players, and we don’t blame him.”
It seemed pretty obvious to everyone in attendance that that was the call. Well not to Hawk (and his partner Darrin Jackson). Harrelson called the play B.S. three times, called it a triple play at one point (only two runners were tagged), and proclaimed that a protest would be upheld. If Hawk had been listening to the voice of Cubs’ Radio, Pat Hughes, and his partner he would have avoided the whole thing.
“There’s going to be interference called on the shortstop, [Juan] Uribe,” Hughes said. “The runner from first was [Angel] Pagan. He smacked into the shortstop as he tried to round second base. And now the umpires will get together and sort it all out.”
Farmer’s analyst, Chris Singleton, also noticed the interference. “Pagan and Uribe bumped pretty hard,” he said. “That threw Pagan off.”
The video below if pretty choppy, but you can hear the whole 9-minute exchange. I understand you have a rooting interest in the team Hawk, but just calm down and get all the facts before you go all crazy on the viewing audience.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pQnPczK5SY
“This is absolute B.S. There should be two out and a man on second. And they’ve got the bases loaded and no out. Dadgum right this game’s going to be played under protest.”- Harrelson
White Sox drop Interleague finale to crosstown rival Cubs (MLB.com)
Only Cubs’ Hughes nails crazy sequence (Chicago Tribune)
(Special thanks to reader/commenter PM for the video)
