Doug Eddings can't stop creating problems, a breakdown

It's 2005, it's the American League Championship Series, it's the Angels, it's the White Sox, it's game two, it's tied up in the bottom of the ninth. This play changed a lot. They had to make some changes in the umpire's handbook after this one because it's kind of crazy and ridiculous. A.J. Pruszynski's up. He's the last out of the inning. It's a tie game. First pitch. I think that might have been that sinker and that looks like the sinker as well. Away. Curveball away. All right. They put the scoreboard up. 2-1. Fouled back. 2-2. That's away. They're working away the entire at-bat. He's going to take a walk, he's going to take a hack, he's going to think about it. What are they going to throw me now? Now this lady in the crowd, she's nervous and she's doing lots of hand stuff. She's got the fingers interwoven and then she's going to rub them, twist them, squeeze, squeeze, rub, rub, rub. The eyes are intense. If you haven't noticed the eyes, the eyes are very intense during the whole hand thing. Procedure, rub, rub, twist, twist. Next pitch, swing and miss, strike three, rings them up. They start walking off the field. Pruszynski starts running the first base. Escobar's like, what? You said out. Every infielder is like, no, dude, you said out. Like, you said out. We all saw it. It can't be drop, third strike, and he gets to go to first. And we're going to get umpire Doug Eddings immediately defending himself and he's going to start saying, no, that's just my mechanic. That's just my mechanic. I didn't call him out. And so, so the manager's like, hey, hey, Doug, Doug, you called him out. You went like that. That's my mechanic, Mike. I didn't call him out. That's my, that's my mechanic. No way. No, Mike, Mike, Mike, hold up. Oh, just listen to me. Okay. And he's listening and he's tuned in. He's focused. The eyes are locked in. This is what you're telling me. What, what dude? What are you, what? Now let's watch. So it's a swing. He puts his right arm out, the signal swing, and then he drops the hammer right there. And that everyone assumes means batters out. He's saying, that's just concluding that it's a swinging strike. And it didn't mean he called him out. So here we go. Let's take a look at the mechanic again. The right arm goes out and then bang. So the angels see that and they say that means he's out, but he didn't verbally say it. Now this is what Doug Eddings had to say after the game. My interpretation is that's my strike three mechanic when it's a swinging strike. If you watch, that's what I do the whole entire game. Eddings said of his third strike routine, the sweep of the right hand, then the clench fist. He said, it's never been an issue until now. So let's go back. If you watch, that's what I do the entire game. But Doug, the at bat before ended on the same thing. And that's not what you did. You threw the right arm out and then you waited very intently until the tag was made to say batters out. So feel like you lied 21 years ago, the very at bat before we don't need to watch the whole game. We just need to go watch the very at bat before when you didn't do that. So, um, that's bad. That's bad. And this is the right mechanic. But according to the umpires before this, it was wishy-washy. And after this, it's, this is what you do. You throw the right arm out and you wait until the tag is made. If it's an obvious drop third strike, if you think that there's a chance of a drop third strike, this is what you do. It's not what he did. And he's saying that he always does the other way, but he didn't clearly. Now, the other thing I read was after this incident, they changed the umpiring philosophy to like no mistakes where now the umpires can all huddle. It's the get the call right philosophy. Unbelievable. They said, instead of hiding behind mechanics and other stuff, all the umpires get together and just get the call, right. And that didn't happen a lot before this. How did this affect the game? If you don't remember the 2005 American league championship series, well, Brzezinski got replaced by a pinch runner. Again, we're bottom of the ninth inning in a tie game. Doug Eddings behind the plate, blinking away, hoping don't watch the pitch before. Don't watch the outback before. Pinch runner immediately steals second base. So now Brzezinski, the drop third strike becomes the go ahead runner in scoring position. The next batter hits a double off the wall and the pinch runner rounds third, touches home and is the winning run. So how did it affect the game? Tremendously. About as much as you could affect a game, that call affected the game. And I don't think he feels great about it, but he stood firm in the post game that that was his mechanic. Watch the whole game. Just don't watch the end. Did Doug Eddings lie? Sure seems like it. Rookie phenom Paul Skeens is on the bump against the Cubs. I feel like he's faced them five times this year. Bottom of the first inning, two outs. So he's going to open Suzuki up here with the sinker, 95 miles per hour. And it's got crazy movement, follows that up with the four seam fastball, 100 miles per hour. Now he's going to go back to the four seam fastball. He throws it so hard. It has run on it. Now the one, two, he goes slider away, which is what he was setting up the entire time. Suzuki doesn't flinch. So he says, all right, I've been playing on that outside edge. That one went away. Okay, let's go fastball on the outside. Now, again, it's a four seam, but it's got so much run. It looks like a two seam, thinks he has strike three, dances off the mound. Now the umpire does not like that he danced off the mound as if it was strike three. You wait for my call, rook. You wait for me to tell you what the pitch is, you know? And Skeens is laughing like, man, you didn't call that a strike. And then he hears the umpire. You don't do that outside. He's like, oh, whoa. Oh, oh, oh, my bad. You're mad at me. He's like, you got it. Not here. Wait for my call. And Skeens is like, oh, oh, all right. Lesson learned. Kind of nods here and like, all right, how about it? Chelty, pirates manager, he's like, yo, Doug, don't be yelling at my guy like that. Screams at the umpire and the umpire says, he's not going to walk off the mound like he thinks it's a strike. You talk to him then. You talk to him. I'm talking to you. Yeah. Oh, get him, Chelty. And then watch this. Skeens is just like, oh, yeah. All right. I dig all of this. I like what you're about, Doug. I like what Chelty's about sticking up for me. Hell yeah. Some good old fashioned sports ball talk, you know? Just a bunch of men sharing a field, getting mad. 3-2 pitch goes inside with the fastball, jams him, but he puts it into center. A little dinked single. So here he comes, the hero, rookie of the year. Bam. Straight in the air. What's going to happen? Aaron Otto's got it for one out. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. He slips. Okay. Get him at third. Turn the double play. Get him at second. Cardinals think they do it. Everyone's like, no, no. Oh, let's tag him again just to be case. He ran off the bag and they're like, no, time, time, time. Hey, umps, let's all get together and chat about this, see what happened. Here's what happened. Aaron Otto goes for this ball. He wants to catch it. He doesn't want to drop it on purpose. He throws on the brakes and you can see his left foot slip and then hit the lip of the grass and then he's down and the ball lands in fair territory. But you can see the umpire, Gabe, down the third base line. He's calling this an infield fly, which means the batter is automatically out and the runners can advance on their own or they can stay put. It's up to them. If they do advance, they have to be tagged. It's a force out because they can always return to the base that they're at. It's a proper call. That is an infield fly. The infield fly rule exists for this very reason because Aaron Otto could just drop that on purpose, leave the runners in no man's land and turn easy double plays like this. That's why the infield fly rule exists. So you can see right there that he did call it. The only problem is the Cardinals didn't understand that he called it. The Cubs didn't understand that he called it. And second base umpire, he didn't know they called it because he thinks this is a force out and he rings up the runner. And then when the Cardinals go to tag, because Goldie was like, tag him, tag him, tag him. He overran the base. You can see the umpire at this point say, time. No, no, no. Time is out. Time is out. This umpire saying he only overran the base because I messed up and I had the rule wrong. So that's on me. But if you look at it, runner was running past the bag and nothing to do with the mechanic or the saying out. He as well thought he was forced out and was going to overrun the bag, whether that umpire did that mechanic or not. But the umpire doesn't think that he thinks the only reason he overran the bag is because he called him out. So he has to fix that. So he calls time out. And that's where we get in trouble because they say, yep, you're safe and you're safe. And there's two outs. And that's where manager of the Cardinals gets really mad. He said, there was not time. Who? He's like, I called time. And he was like, you called time. Tell me you called time in my face. Explain it to me. I don't care about that. It's not another ******* rule. And he says he comes off the bag and I called time. I called time. He's like, the play was not ******* over. It was not ******* over. You fucked that up. Yeah, you fucked. I don't care what you tell me. I don't care what you tell me. And then the head home plate, I know, but that's what happened. And he's like, well, that's fucked up. They messed up. He tries explaining it to him. He's like, that's bullshit. He comes off the bag and he tags him. He's fucked it up. It's bullshit. It's bullshit. And then he's going to say, and you know it. And that gets him ejected. You can't point in his face. We had a fun situation in Philadelphia. The Dodgers were crushing the Phillies. Verdugo swing through that fastball, but crushes that off speed pitch for two run Homer, make it a 12 to one game. Next pitch hits Justin Turner in the leg and the ump immediately tosses him out much to that fan's dismay or pleasure. This guy, he's like, it was a curve ball. He can't believe it. Justin Turner does a double take the catcher's trying to figure it out. He's like, no, I just hit a home run. Jack Peterson's going to say it was a curve ball. There's no chance. Capra says there's no chance. Justin Turner's going to laugh with his friends over there. Like, I can't believe that just happened. And now cap was going to request just inside. Justin, Justin says, do not talk to him. Don't tell him anything. Capitalist says, but did I tell you that that ************ right there knows and everybody in the dugout and you know, damn well that you should not have thrown him out like that. Can't tell him says something like I had to throw him out. He kept coming inside. He's going to keep coming inside. I can't have a batter get hit. Christ has more to say. Capital does a double take, look around. He's the best in the league at these double take, look around. It's capital's greatest skill. Every objection, he does something like this. It cracks me up. And he's going to say, well, then there's not trying to throw at him with sliders. You are the reason you made the decision through him out of the game. Not anyone else. It's because you know, um, says something here. Other comes in. What do you got to say? Huh? Huh? There's no ******* reason. Capital is pretty correct. I mean, you can issue a warning if you want. There's no reason to throw them out. You know, you know, better right now, you know, better, pretty ridiculous. Um, I don't know. I'm Scott to feel like kind of a chump. You got the other team laughing with players like, well, yeah, he wasn't trying to, right. I know. Are you guys talking about me over there? Are you guys talking about me and laughing about me over there? It's the first pitch of the game. Let's get things in order. It's outside. It's called a strike. JP is like, Oh, the next pitch way outside correctly called a ball. The next one high above. Oh, come on, dog. Uh, time, time. Let's make you think about that. And then he strikes out chasing inside. That was the first inning is first at bat. Now we're jumping to the fifth inning. He's got a runner in scoring position. There's two outs that pitch strike outside, but caught the edge. He can live with that. Oh, and one next pitch high strike. Oh man, God damn it. You could actually hear him very faintly in the audio say it's not a strike. Let's go time. Okay. Time batter is called time. He's making me think about what I've done. He's spitting in his hands. He's disgusted. I'm disgusted. We're all disgusted. The Oh two pitch high against strikes. God damn it. You suck. It's not a strike. That's bullshit. Your zone's been wrong. Every game. Hey, it's my zone today. Every game that's horseshit. God damn it. He's upset. His zone's been wrong. Every game. That's what he said. Every game. Deep dive into that in a second. His manager came out to make sure he got away and then his manager is going to fight for him. And he says, first at bat, they're not even close dot first at bats about this far outside first pitch of the game. Oh, I'm telling you you've been bad all night, especially to him. Been bad all night. You're getting run over this. You're getting run over this. You I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I've, I understand who said anything about me not looking at you when I've been calling them for both sides and you're actually trying to get run for this. What service? Like, uh, yeah, you've been bad. So then he just throws the ball in. I saw what JP Crawford said. He said, every game, your zone is like this. So I thought JP Crawford doesn't like Doug Eddings. He doesn't like batting when he's the umpire. I went and found every single pitch that's been thrown when JP Crawford is the hitter and Doug Eddings is the umpire. There have been nine games in those nine games per baseball savant and the pitch tracking. There have been nine balls that Doug Eddings called a strike. And there have been four strikes that he called a ball. So that JP is right. That's worse. It's not terrible though. But then I went and looked at all the pitches on the edges and all the pitches that JP Crawford kind of reacted to. So I'm calling these perceived missed calls in the mind of JP Crawford. And that jumps all the way up to 23 perceived missed calls from Doug Eddings, JP Crawford. So he totally thinks that Doug Eddings just has it out for him and always when he's up out of the nine games, eight of them include a perceived missed call from Doug Eddings in the brain of JP Crawford and 15 out of the 39 at bats. Buckle up. We got a wild one. Trey Turner with the swinging button, a one run game of the world series and elimination game trying to bust it down the line gets there. The glove hits his body. He goes to second ump says, nope, you're out. You got in the way. Got in the way of what? All I did was run as fast as I could, as straight as I could. Bullshit. How are you doing? That's bullshit. Bullshit. He ran right out of the ******* line. He ran right to the bag. It's bullshit. And you know what? Dave Martinez is right. He ran as hard as he could, as straight as he could. The swing takes him to the left. He corrects himself. He never makes an egregious move in left to right runs right down the line. Wait till you watch. Wait until you watch. Wait until you watch. Oh ----. I'm not going to want to watch this. Am I? So what happens is it's not a reviewable play because the MLB is ridiculous and you can't review plays even though I have so many replays. It's a judgment call. So they're like, fine, **** that. We're just going to protest it. But they're like, well, we don't know if you're allowed to protest this or not. We have to call New York and find out. Meanwhile, Trey Turner sees Joe Torrey in the crowd. He's right there. Delay. I can't read. Just ask him. Ooh, Trey, you might not want to say that. What am I supposed to do? Run ******* around? I'm I don't even get. They can't protest it because it's a judgment call. So now they're just fucks ******* horse ----. A rallying cry was born. Can Bud Black do the same for his Rockies who are struggling so bad? They're losing a lot of games. ------- check it. That's sloppy. Let's go. Tell him, bud. Bullshit. Um, says no more bullshit, Doug. One more is no more. Oh, yeah. A little tongue out action. Always with the tongue out action. Hit him with a little seed spit care. Got him. ****. Sloppy play. You're out. That is so ******* weak, Doug. I gave you a warning twice. I don't give a ----. Clearly you care, though. Go and watch that play. God damn it. Bud's going to leave. He's going to put his mask on. So aggressive. Look at this. Dude, calm down. You're not going to war. Doug, calm down. Doug, stop. Come on, Doug. You're crazy. You're ******* nuts. All right. Here's the swing. I don't know. You make up your own mind. You're all fight about it. No one will agree on that. This is a big one. A much anticipated, big, deep look into the Hansel Rincon debut, which was marred by an umpire being rude to him and then an ejection and then a lot of shoddy calls. First pitch as a big leaguer low and away strike. No ball. Next one fouled back. Third big league pitch also fouled back and then put in play and caught his first out as a big leaguer. He's making his debut for the Cardinals, who are up by three in the bottom of the sixth inning. But now he's going to face a lefty and lefties hit righties better than righties hit righties. And the first pitch is smoked off the wall, over Jordan Walker's head, into the grass. He's on his way to third base. He's digging. He's jogging. He's slowing down. He slides. Safe is the call. Safe, they say. Let's get on the phone. Are you guys going to check? Don't rat on me. Yeah, let's check it out. Let's check it out. Doug Edding is the umpire. Puts the earpiece in. Gets ready. Ali Marmal, manager of the Cardinals, looks up at the scoreboard. Says, show me something good. Show me something good. I'll show you something good. This throw by Jordan Walker. It's unbelievable. Watch this hit a jet stream. Whoop. Goes straight up in the air. Perfect throw. Did bounce over his head. And here's a look at what we're looking at. Did his, does his foot touch the bag? Did the glove touch the leg? What happens first? They're taking a look. I don't care. I just want to show you this throw again. Watch this. You see that little upwards dip? It's like a riser. Threw that so hard that right around here, it hits the backspin and just goes up like a plane taking off. 98 miles per hour. Do you see what I'm seeing? Up in the air. Caught a little drift. Unbelievable. Throw is on the money. You saw how close the tag was. None of it mattered because he dropped the ball. So it's a quick replay. Cause he dropped the ball. I wonder why he didn't tell his Doug out. Hey, don't, don't replay it. I dropped the ball. Doug Eddings. He's pumped about this. He is pumped that they reviewed it. And it was such a silly replay call. And you know who loved that? Every broadcaster was like, Whoa, Doug Eddings. Take a listen. Attaway Doug Eddings. Dougie with a little stank on that confirmed. That was the most emphatic I've heard a crew chief this year. Doug Eddings said, there's no doubt about it. Shame on you for challenging. Oh my goodness. The crew chief is proud of that call. How dare you challenge? Shame on you for challenging. How dare you challenge? That's the energy. Everyone was like, Whoa, Doug, you're putting off some angry energy. So now the rookie's got a on third one out and he spikes the next pitch. That runner comes home and scores on the wild pitch, a triple and a wild pitch. That's not fun. He looks disappointed. Doug Eddings got a little scared. Watch this. Oh, jumps gets nervous. The very next pitch, same thing happens, but this time hits Doug in the foot, but look, he gets scared again. He does a little jump again. Is this rookie throwing the ball at me? He's scaring me. Hey, I don't want to get hit like this. Maybe Doug doesn't like being scared. Doesn't like being hit. This rookie pitcher can't throw the ball where he wants to throw it. I'm mad at him. Now I'm going to look at him and maybe I'm going to notice something that I don't like. Huh? Hey, are you wearing that hat, kid? Time. Straighten his hat. Yeah. Tell him to straighten his hat. Straighten his hat on my field. Brincone's like, okay. Doug says, thumbs up. Thanks. Like, that's fun. Catcher's laughing. Like, what are we doing now? After the game, Doug Eddings said it was the Rockies batter who first asked about Brincone's hat. The batter said, Hey, can he wear his hat like that? Eddings said, I really didn't know. It was really, really crooked. So I asked the catcher to tell him to straighten his hat and the pitcher did. I don't think that happened because I don't see the batter turn and look at the umpire at all before the umpire steps out to say something. If you're wondering, why does that even matter? Well, that does somewhat matter because the batters can say, Hey, this is distracting. And then that allows the umpire within his discretion to make the pitcher take something off that is distracting the batter. We see this a lot. We see earrings had to be taken off. We've seen undershirts had to be taken off. We've seen sleeves had to be cut because batters were like, Hey, that's distracting. The umpire says, okay, we've seen shiny belts get put in the trash. We've seen R.A. Dickey have to cut off his friendship bracelet his daughter made for him. And recently we've seen Doug Eddings himself remove a glove because it had some white on it and that's distracting. So it is within normal grounds for umpires to use their discretion. Now MLB came out and said, this was not that situation. And I don't even think the batter complained. I think he just made that up because it saves us bacon a little bit. Well, let's keep going. We've got a two Oh pitch now to Kerrig on the Rockies and it becomes a three Oh pitch. Ooh. And he's like, you throw that again. I'm a swing kid. And he does. And he did. And this one's up in the air. And just like the last one, it's going to find some part of the funky wall. It's going to roll. He's off. He's hitting second. He's going to stop at third for a triple. No, he's going home. We've got another solo trip around the bases inside the park home run. Come on. I did that. Rincon's sad. I mean, it's sad. It's a bad debut. The umpires yelling at you to fix your hat. You got a triple, a wild pitch and an inside the park home run. That's got to be the first of its kind. Game continues. The next batter is going to bloop one over the short stops head. And man, they're like, let's get the bullpen up. Cause this four one game became a four to three game in a hurry. Bullpen. We got Brule warming up the lefty. They wait till six seconds on the pitch clock to buy their reliever some more time. And then Ali Marmal is going to come out and he's going to make the pitching change. Tough debut for Rincon. Not what he wants it to be. Hopefully he gets many more chances. He walks off the mound. His head is down and his hat is still a little crooked after the game. Doug Eddings also said they can't wear it backward like a catcher. If it's a distraction, like anything on the field, like a glove or anything, and someone makes you aware of it, you address that. But I looked into this rule and I asked major league baseball and I didn't get a full answer, but all the players on the field just have to wear their uniform the same way. It doesn't even say you have to wear a hat. So if the entire team is like, let's not wear a hat, as long as they're not wearing a hat, that's within the rules. They could all wear it backwards too, per the way the rule is written. Now we've never seen that. The article goes on to say, Rincon did adjust his hat some, and I want to call that into question. On the left is his hat before being told to strain it. On the right is his hat afterwards. These are the four. Now I'm going to jumble them up and you tell me which one was strained and which one was not. Impossible. He didn't strain his hat. While Ali Marmal was on the mound, his catcher tells him, hey, umpire made him straighten his hat. That's what that was about. He told him to strain his hat. So Ali Marmal points to Doug Eddings and says, hey, let's go to the side and have a chat. Like, let's go talk to the side. And Doug Eddings, see he's pointing, like, can we talk while he warms up? Can we go to the side? And Doug Eddings looks at him and says, no, why don't you come right here and talk to me here. Hey, start the clock. And then they got to talk right here. And again, Marmal is, you can see his arm. He's like, let's go talk on the side while they're warming up. Doug Eddings like, no, you want to talk? We'll talk right here. We'll make this pitcher warm up with us standing right on the edge of the throwing zone. Ridiculous. Another Doug Eddings quote, he said, I've been doing this too long to take it personal. He wanted to defend his guy who had just given up some runs. Nobody said anything until he gave up a couple of runs. Ali Marmal turned and pointed you out as soon as he found out what happened. He didn't know what happened beforehand. So that's dumb. There's no closeups of this conversation, but the broadcast cut to it right afterwards. So we do get the aftermath of that convo, which starts the whole big convo. You can't, you're not ******* the police of that. You're not the ******* police of that. And you know that. So don't **** around with that. Yeah. You, you a big boy. You're a ******* big boy. **** out of here. **** you. And then to stick it to him. Eddings gives him a pitch clock violation. He wasn't even ready. He wasn't even behind the dish. Everyone's supposed to just be ready position. He's John with the coach pitch clock violation, just to rub it in. They don't like that over in the Cardinals dugout. He says, you can go **** yourself. Yeah. Jesus. What are we doing? Grow the **** up. Oh my God. Oh, still yelling at me. Yeah. Get the **** out of here. That's bullshit. Hold on. Okay. This is your last warning. No more. Do it. ------- toss me. Go ahead. **** that. Okay. You're gone. ------- toss me. You think I give a ----? Go **** yourself. Doing that over his ******* hat. I like how when he turns his head sideways, he puts on a scary face like, Oh, you're scared of my hat like that, man. Cause of his ******* hat. Grow the **** up. You are a ******* little kid. You need to grow the **** up. The kid is a rookie and you're making a problem because of his ******* hat. You need to grow the ****. Wow. That's all you got. What do you have? Explain yourself other than being the veteran ******* umpire. I'm going to tell you how to wear your hat. You're going to tell him how to ******* wear his hat. Why don't you give it a go and call the league? Do me a favor. Grow the **** up. Holds eye contact just for a little bit. Let's him know he means business. Grow up, Doug Eddings. That's what I'm telling you to do. Then he walks off feeling good about himself, feeling pretty upset about the whole situation. And Doug Eddings makes Doug Eddings makes this face. I've done a lot of breakdowns about Doug Eddings and this face comes up a decent amount on my field, on my field. Okay. You're good. You're good. You get your warmups in. All right. Remember there's a strike because I did a pitch clock violation on your ass because your manager was yelling at me. Remember that now this story, we've got more to discuss. It's a tide game. Now the next two batters got hits. It's tied four to four. They lay down a bunt, great glove flip to the catcher who tests safe, who doesn't tag him out in time. He's safe. They say, let's review that. Hey, let's review that pitchers. Like, Hey, what, what, what, what? Challenge, challenge, challenge, challenge, challenge. Third base is saying, no, no, no challenge that challenge that challenge that. And then he realizes, Oh, I dropped the ball. And they did the replay when I could have just told them that I dropped the ball and we wouldn't have wasted the challenge. And now we don't have any of those challenges. The **** damn. Maybe Doug Eddings didn't get a good look though. Or maybe he got a perfect look. Seems to me. Oh, Doug didn't make this call wrong because he was feeling petty. Did he? No, he just must not have had a good look at what he was looking directly at. He's I mean, he didn't know they were out of challenges because he was mad at them for challenging earlier in the game and then mad at everything else. So then, Oh no, I probably not happened. Isn't it?