Friday night’s game against the New York Yankees saw a lot of bad umpiring in the form of blatant hometown calls.
As if the latest meltdown from the bullpen wasn’t bad enough, umpire C.B. Bucknor called Robinson Cano safe on a lead-off single that replays clearly showed Jason Donald’s throw beat him to the bag.
Donald and Bucknor weren’t done, though, as Donald was called out at first in the seventh inning on what appeared to be an infield single.
The problem here is the Indians have no real recourse against the umpires for making such bad calls, and the fact is the Indians aren’t the only team in the league to be on the receiving end of bad calls from umpires in a game versus the Yankees.
What the Indians should do is make a stand. Before you read any further, understand I’m not crazy and that I’m fully aware this would never, ever happen unless the moon was aligned with Venus, while Sagittarius was rising and the entire front office of the ball club decided to go insane.
So with that in mind, the next time the umpires start clearly giving calls to the New York Yankees, manager Manny Acta should just pull his team off the field, and call commissioner Bud Selig and demand immediate action.
When you have a replay clearly showing the umpire is either blind or biased, there should be repercussions.
If a team like the Indians, who would have nothing to lose this year if the commissioner ordered the game a forfeit would do this, it could end up being a watershed moment for the league as it would firmly shine the spotlight on one of the game’s darkest secrets.
Everyone knows teams like the Yankees and Red Sox tend to get favorable calls in situations teams like the Indians or Royals wouldn’t, yet it’s accepted. This needs to stop.
What makes the idea of just walking off the field and telling the umpires to go pound sand even more attractive is it’s not like calling the commissioner will mean the Indians won’t get close calls anymore because that obviously isn’t happening anyway.
The series versus the Yankees continues today, the only question being, how many bad calls will the umpire crew make today?
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