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Posted By: Todd Schultz

Frank, You are right about it being home plate umpire's call until the ball passes the bag, but I've seen that before, and I've often wondered if the first base umpire is merely indicating the home plate umpire's call so that the runner, whose back would be to the ball as he runs down the line, would have some indication as to whether the ball was fair or foul. I've not heard any discussion on this, but frankly, I'd rather be in the dark than to hear Tim McCarver's strained allegorical explanations or rule interpretations.

You are also right in your assessment of the umpires' performance in this series. They flat out blew that missed tag at third and the call in game three where Moyer and Howard combined on a beautiful play to get Crawford on a swinging bunt, only to have him called safe at first. Other inconsistencies and errors have been pointed out as well. I don't subscribe to the notion that we are not seeing the best crews either. The fact is that any crew should have got most if not all of these calls right, and there should not be that big a drop off from the best to presumably the second, third or fourth best crew. The World Series deserves much better from the blue than what we have been shown thus far.