As I tuned into this year’s World Series between the Rays and Phillies, I began to hear myself say things to myself like “That looked like a balk to me.” And then “Boy, sure looked like he tagged him”. And then “Wow. Those look like strikes to me.” Finally I had it figured out, or so I thought. For sure Leslie Nielsen was going to take off his mask, stare into the camera and give that stupid look and I’d realize that I was watching the Naked Gun and not the 2008 World Series. But alas, this horrible one-sided display of poor officiating was and is real: Cole Hamels balked the tying run to second base with no out in the sisth inning of game one, but it wasn’t called and the runner was picked off. In game 4, Joe Blanton got the biggest strike zone I’ve ever seen, and Jeff Kasmir got squeezed all through his game 5 start. And in games 3 and 4 (I know because Fox showed a video montage of all of the bad calls), more bad calls, all against the Rays. Then there was the questionable handling of the weather in game 5. I’m not sure what I’ve been watching, but it sure doesn’t look anything like World Series baseball is supposed to look like.
