O/T Is This The Worst Call You’ve Ever Seen?
 

I am going to say yes and I have seen thousands if not 10s of thousands of calls in my 50 yrs of playing baseball/softball. It's because both umpires missed it, that it is so bad.

2nd pic down is the video
(and I see this was already posted in the Water Cooler section earlier today. Thanks for putting that one in the correct place, Steve)

https://sports.yahoo.com/worst-blown...024126147.html
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Both umpires were asleep on that one. Being a baseball umpire myself it always helps if your partner can help you out when miss such an obvious call. Hard to believe they both missed it. Wow!

I saw that after I posted this thread (as I said in the post).

It seemed good enough for an O/T for more baseball oriented folks to see. It's pretty amazing. Both umpires not watching the ball or play whatsoever.

I saw that one earlier with a coworker. Neither of us have ever seen a worse call that we can recall. Hard to imagine neither saw him swing the bat.

It’s worse than that! The Ball was over the plate. It was probably a strike whether he swung or not. It was blown on many levels.

There must be a back story.

Sort of on topic
 

While we are on the topic - and this hardly even close to being in the category of worst call in history - but I am always angered when crappy home plate umpires completely blow a strike call, and the announcers say nothing about it because they aren't paying attention either.

In the all-star game, Brandon Crawford got rung up on a pitch that was at least a foot outside. Joe Buck: "Crawford strikes out on a pitch on the outside corner", and they all move on - with Crawford staring at the umpire as if to say "are you serious?"

Btw - I really have no love for the giants or for Crawford. I have no problem watching him fail, but it was quite a ridiculous strike call.

It bothers me when I watch Cubs games, and no mention is made that a batter who is battling a pitcher (more specialized generation of pitchers than we've ever seen), and the umpire changes the strike zone for a second to give the pitcher yet another edge. I can't wait for the electronic strike zone, and I thought I'd never say that...

The change in the game in the last 10 years or so has really only benefited the pitchers, and I think an actually defined strike zone would help level the playing field some more, as well as benefit hitters who stand closer to the plate and tend to get outside pitches called on them. Rant over.

I know it's not baseball but that blown call against Djokovich in the Kyle Edmund match was pretty ridiculous.

Ball bounces twice, right in front of Ref - Djokovich should have won point

Edmunds shot lands out of bounds, both lineman and ref miss this - Djokovich should have won point

Edmunds hits net, right in front of ref - Djokovich should have won point

Edmund awarded the point and Djokovich told he's not allowed to challenge the double hit (or Edmunds hitting the net for that matter).

And it was a critical break point.

Hard to blow a call that badly in my opinion. You had 3 different ways to get the call correct, and you blew all three chances.

Cheers,
patrick

When I was a little league umpire I'll never forget my first ever game. I was working the plate and before the game started the home team coach gave me $20 as soon as I got there. I thought he was paying me for the game and that maybe home team pays. Then a few minutes later the visiting coach came over while I was putting on my pads and he gave me $20 too. I thought that was weird but maybe they split the cost of me being there.

A week later I got a check in the mail from little league for working the game, and that's when I figured out I'd just accepted my first two bribes.

By the way, this was for a softball game between 13 year old girls.

If it were ESPN commentators, i am sure Jessica Mendoza and A-Rod would be praising the umpires on how great the umpires were especially if it was for the team they liked. Or Joe Buck would call it a wonderful call especially if the Call was against the Cubs.

I have no problem watching Brandon Crawford not fail lol. Oh and terrible call. Maybe the sun was in both of their eyes from different directions?!?!

This is a horrible call, and perhaps in a vacuum, the worst. But I believe that this is essentially a league equivalent to Triple-A and as far as I know, the game had no significance. The story doesn't even mention how the at bat ends - does the missed strike matter in any way? Did he walk because of it and score a run that made the difference in the game? Or was it inconsequential? I'm guessing it was inconsequential...

Unlike the Jim Joyce blown call in Armando Galaraga's non-perfect game. That's an umpire at the apex of his profession who blew a call that was very consequential. That's a worse call than this ball, in my opinion.

What are the other candidates out there? Any blown/missed calls that had an impact on a playoff race, playoff game or playoff series? I'd say anything like that would also be worse than the one in the link...

I just saw this call on PTI. What were those umps watching?

I don’t know guys. Looked like he checked it to me.

1997 NLCS Eric Gregg calling pitches that were 2 feet outside as strikes turning Livan Hernandez into Nolan Ryan.

Yes in terms of impact on a significant game there have been much worse calls in sports. But as far as just completely missing such an obvious call I'm not sure any compare. If anyone has one to share I'd like to see it.

Here's a link to the 10 worst calls in sports according to espn, taking into account the significance.

https://www.espn.com/page2/s/list/wo...ls/010730.html

Don Denkinger's blown call in the 1985 World Series comes to mind.. Changed the outcome and swung the series in the Cards favor..

I don't remember who it was, but I saw something about one of the writers or broadcasters (Yeah, it was probably over a decade ago, so I don't recall a lot of the details. ) discussing scoring the game in the booth. One mentioned he'd worked with another guy and at one point asked about an earlier play and got no answer. Off mic he asked what was up and the guy showed his scoring sheet, including a few at bats marked with "WL" he asked what that meant, and the second guy said "Wasn't looking" .........

This strike zone still haunts me. :)

But worst call or not, that Mexican league nonsense is unacceptable. They were right to suspend them.

The Denkinger and Joyce calls were the first that came to mind. Although, I have to say that I gained immense respect for Joyce after he manned up and owned it....something that I feel is quite rare in the umpiring world.

P.S. Would this be the wrong place to go on a rant about Joe West?

I was listening to the afternoon program on MLB Network Radio on XM earlier this week. They were taking callers on the show, and the callers were giving their opinions of the biggest disappointments for the first half of the season. One caller stated that the biggest disappointment was that Joe West was still umpiring games. I couldn't agree more.

Cheers!
Mark

I haven't read this thread from the beginning but I'm going to have to guess a majority are calling out Jim Joyce's blown call that denied Armando Galarraga of a perfect game. That call wasn't even close. You have to give it to Galarraga for not totally losing it. It's just sickening to see that knowing how rare the perfect game is.

The infamous 'non-tag' of Bud Harrelson at home plate in Game 2 of the 1973 World Series has always been a thorn in the side of us Mets fans...

https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q...E&&FORM=VRDGAR

...but a helluva lot of people fail to realize that we actually won that game in extra innings.

Rich Garcia says Hi!

Attachment 323480

Nixed perfect game...........
 

The worst call, IMO.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vmncfTtoZN8

This.

No way.
Not even anywhere in the same realm of missing the batter going all the way around and 2 umps missing it. Had the runner fallen down half way and the pitcher tagged the bag with him 10 ft away, and 2 umps missed it, then yeah. Otherwise it's crazy to think this play was a worse call.

Is this a million percent more important call, yes. Is it a worse technical call. Whomever thinks this fairly close play at first was a worse call is blind.

I’m not blind, I think that stakes play a role in it all. That’s why I originally said, “in a vacuum..” Anyone who needs hyperbole to undermine a rational argument is a silly goofball 🤪


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In a game of inches, he was out by a mile. Good point on Galaraga handling himself. And he replay of Miggy going from celebration mode to incredulous is amazing.


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I have said this many times before ----

I have always thought Eric Gregg had the biggest, but most consistent strike zones ever -----> If the catcher caught the pitch, it was a strike ...... :rolleyes:

Just think if Galarraga had the benefit of instant replay in 2010. He'd be immortalized in baseball history rather than being a foot note. Since it would have been the last out, it would have been nice to overturn the call and give the perfect game to Galarraga. Especially since the next batter became the last out. Sure, that's saying it breaks tradition of baseball being an imperfect game because of the human factor, but they do instant replay now anyway, so why not?