Golf Update

Many of you know I made the commitment to improve my golf game this summer. After many buckets of balls at the range and many days on the course I'm starting to see some results. I'm not as consistent as I'd like, but I guess if I were I'd be on TV on Sunday afternoons. At the start of the summer I had a couple of goals. 1) Start golfing 9 holes in the 40s instead of the 50s. 2) Start golfing 18 holes at 100 or less. This weekend I had a 49 and a 45. I also had a round of 18 at 100. Now comes the hard part - consistently doing this every time out!

Rough Week for Major League Umpires

The past 8 or 9 days has not been too impressive for the umpires. Let's start with the Twins and Rangers on July 18. Home plate Brian O'Nora wasn't feeling well (that's an understatement) and had to twice leave the game to hurl. The second one was captured on camera for all to see. If you have to leave the game not once but twice, you shouldn't be behind the plate. To make matters worse, crew chief Gary Cederstrom did not take control of the situation and send O'Nora to the dressing room.

Fast foward to the Twins and Rangers on July 19. Brian O'Nora is now the third base umpire. Early in the game one of the Rangers hit a foul ball that was initially ruled a home run. Thankfully after the umpires reviewed the replays they got the call right. What was disconcerting is that Brian O'Nora had probably the best view in the stadium and blew the call.

Now we'll move to Oakland and highlight one of the worst calls at home plate in a long time. Mike Muchlinski was working the plate in a wild high scoring game. Mike Muchlinski was lazy which resulted in him being out of position and making a terrible call. Replays clearly showed Cuddyer was safe, however the game was over instead of now being tied.

Mr. Selig - are you seeing any of these embarrassing incidents? Umpires make $100,000 to $300,000 per year. Is it too much to ask that people making this kind of money make a better effort to make the correct call?

First Trip to Fenway Park

On July 8, 2009 I visited Fenway Park for the first time. It was unseasonably cold, however the experience was great. We had great seats - about 24 rows up right behind the left handed batters box looking down the left field line. If you've never watched a game at Fenway I highly recommend it. I was amazed by the number of people on the streets around the ball park. Tim Wakefield was the starting pitcher for the Red Sox. It was amazing to see his knuckle ball dance. The A's hit him pretty hard, however the Red Sox bat came alive late in the game to take the lead. Papelbon had a very labored save.

It was also a treat to see a game where a top-notch umpire worked the plate. Tim McClelland called a fantastic game. He didn't give up on Wakefield's knucklers. I only recall one instance where a batter looked back questioningly. Baseball could certainly use more umpires like Tim.