News & Articles

The World Series met my personal level of success this fall because the competitive balance between the Boston Red Sox and the St. Louis Cardinals was worthy of going all seven games. (We can’t be sure of this, writing after Game 5, when the Series was headed back for Boston and a Wednesday night Game 6, which, if St. Louis won, would necessitate a Thursday night Game 7.)
But at this time of year, when we know baseball will be extinguished for five months when the Series ends, we find it easy to keep enjoying playoff baseball, and when the World Series runs at least six games, we can appreciate the game at its finest.

In this particular Series, we have had great pitching, surprising hitting, great fielding plays, and some unprecedented drama -- in the form of Game 3 ending on a controversial obstruction call that gave the Cardinals a sudden victory. It wasn’t really controversial, but it should have been. There was no controversy because all the announcers, color commentators, members of the covering media, and that posse of experts assigned to analyze every nuance of every game -- all of them -- agreed with one stance: They got it right.
They meant the umpires got the call right when they called fallen Boston third baseman Will Middlebrooks for illegally obstructing Allen Craig from trying to go from third to home. Getting there was, indeed, more than half the fun. Boston had rallied from a 4-2 deficit to gain a 4-4 tie, and the Cardinals were batting in the last of the ninth.

St. Louis had Yadier Molina running on third and Craig on second with one out against superb Red Sox closer Koji Uehara. The infield was drawn in close and second baseman Dustin Pedroia made a great backhanded stab of Jon Jay’s grounder up the middle, and on his throw home, catcher Jarrod Saltalamacchia made a sensational play for a lunging tag to prevent Molina from scoring. Craig, running on a bad ankle, was breaking for third, and Saltalamacchia quickly adjusted to fire hastily to third. Craig slid to the outfield side of third baseman Middlebrooks and was going to beat the throw, but barely.

Because Saltalamacchia didn’t have time to set for a classic catcher’s overhand snap throw, his throw instead tailed off to the right. Middlebrooks, properly straddling third, reached for the throw that appeared heading right into his glove, butd as it tailed away from him, he had to reach, farther, then farther still, and finally made a dive for the ball, which ticked off the end of his glove and got through, up the foul line and into left field. As Middlebrooks sprawled, having lunged to the infield side of third base, with Craig sliding to the bag behind him, Craig realized he could score the winning run, so he scrambled up from his slide and starts for home, but stumbles over Middlebrooks as he tries to step over him. Craig falls, but immediately scrambles back to his feet and heads for home. He is, however, nailed at the plate by a strong throw from left-fielder Daniel Nava and another spectacular tag by Saltavecchia. It would have been an amazing feat, to have the game sent into extra innings on a double play where both outs were made by the catcher!

However, third base umpire Jim Joyce immediately signaled obstruction, and plate umpire Dana DeMuth spotted the signal and called Craig safe at home, even though he never did reach the plate, and hasn’t yet. It seemed like a good call, particularly because in slow-motion, you see Middlebrooks, lying face down, kick up his feet in a manner that made it appear he might have been trying to block Craig’s path. He actually didn’t, though.  As someone who has coached about 30 baseball teams, and who played a lot of shortstop and third base, I don’t believe there was any intent by Middlebrooks to purposely block the runner, and it was only an instinctive reaction to feeling Craig running into him, at about his hip and stumbling over him. Intent, however, doesn’t matter in an obstruction call.

But look at the play one more time with a more discerning eye: When Middlebrooks lunged for the throw, his sprawled body was entirely inside the base line, with his head facing second base, and his feet toward the third base line. When his feet were upraised, no part of Middlebrooks was closer than two feet to the base line. The contact occurred when Craig, when he scrambled to his feet, bad ankle and all, was actually inside the baseline by about three feet when he started for home plate. That’s why he didn’t make contact with Middlebrooks’ raised foot, but it’s also why he thumped right into the hip of the sprawled Middlebrooks. If Craig jumped up from his slide and was right on top of third base -- where he should have been, if you think about it -- he would have had a clear path down the baseline from third base to home. No obstruction. No hurdle. Even though he was inside the baseline when he got to his feet, if he took one step to the base and then ran for home, he might have made it just in time to beat the throw.

Base-running is a fine art, and in the heat of battle, it’s understandable that a runner sliding into third might not be thinking of getting over onto the baseline. But think about it another way: If Middlebrooks had stumbled a couple more steps before falling, and was six feet inside the baseline, and Craig still tripped over him, would it still have been obstruction? Of course not. In my opinion, Middlebrooks sprawled out of the base line and out of the line required for it to be obstruction. That begs the follow-up question: How far can a runner run inside the baseline before he’s interfering with the fielder, rather than being obstructed?

I can recall playing in amateur ball games when I’d hit a swinging-bunt trickler a few feet out in front of the plate. There are few things lonelier than running as hard as you can down the first base line, when you know that at any instant the catcher’s throw is going to zip past your head and you’ll be an easy out. Trying to be subtle, on more than one such occasion I might run a casual step to the inside of the base line and continue, hoping the throw would hit me in the back and I’d be safe, rather than a ridiculously easy out. Take one for the team, and all that. I’ve seen others do it too, and an alert umpire will call the runner out for running out of the baseline to block the throw. No argument, you just got caught.

I bring that up because of the similarity of Craig’s game-winning run in Game 3. He didn’t purposely run inside the baseline, just as Middlebrooks didn’t purposely fall in his path, or even just out of his path by being inside the baseline. It was a quick-instinct reaction for Craig to scramble to his feet and take the shortest route to home plate -- which happened to be out of the designated base line. The fact that he stumbled and fell over Middlebrooks should not have been attributed to Middlebrooks, in my estimation.

If you get a chance to see the play one more time on video replay, or if you see the photo in Sunday’s New York Times or on the Times website, look closely. Calling Middlebrooks for obstruction was no better than it would have been to call Craig out for running outside the baseline. The ideal call would have been no call, and the play would have continued with Saltalamacchia making two great tags for a double play that would send the game into extra innings.