Well, what do you know?! For perhaps the first time I can remember in any sport, umpires corrected a call and, in doing so, made an assumption without the players having to make a play, so they could, in their opinion, get this right and do justice to the players. And people question whether anything can be done to correct the travesty of the perfect game.
Here is the Sun-Times article of Friday, June 18:
Scott Podsednik hit a three-run homer and Andrew Lerew pitched six effective innings, lifting the host Kansas City Royals to a 5-2 victory over the Houston Astros on Thursday night in a game that included a bizarre reversed call by the umpires.
The play happened with one out in the fifth inning, when Kansas City’s Yuniesky Betancourt hit a soft liner to shortstop with a runner on second. Second base umpire Mike Everitt initially ruled Geoff Blum caught the ball on a fly, then stepped on second to double up David DeJesus for the final out.
After meeting near the mound, the umpires ruled the ball hit the ground before Blum fielded it, and they called both teams back out to the field. DeJesus was placed at third base and Betancourt was ruled out–even though Blum never threw to first.
Crew chief Tim McClelland told the Royals the decision was to correct the missed call on the field and that it was assumed Blum would have thrown out Betancourt at first.
They assumed the throw to first base would not have been wild or dropped, in order to get the call right. And nothing could be done about the perfect game because it would set a precedent?