Let’s Not Get The Yips Over Blown Call In ALDS Series

Yes, it seems that even replay failed to help Major League Baseball and its umpires make the right call Saturday night as the Royals and Yankees played a great back-and-forth game. Yes, that second base call did lead the Yankees to score the winning run. Yet, let's not forget Royals pitching uncharacteristically walked eight Yankee batters, so maybe if we don't walk eight, that blown call doesn't matter. Frankly, that blown call doesn't matter anyway. It's how the Royals as a team process it that matters.

If you want to revisit what happened or need to catch up, KMBC has a great recap of the incident with a video that you can read here.

Let's not forget 1985. The Royals should have lost that World Series. A blown call by umpire Don Denkinger helped the Royals take game six from the Cardinals. Yeah, if you were a member of that 1985 Cardinals team, it sucked to have to come back to Royals Stadium for game seven. They could have taken care of business then; instead, they got the yips, looked like a bunch of whiny sore losers on TV who couldn't keep it together, and the Royals just walked all over them.

Then there's the Cubs and Steve Bartman in 2003. The Cubs were four outs away from winning their first National League pennant since 1945 when Bartman may or may not interfered with a foul ball Moises Alou was trying to catch. Alou visibly became upset, the Cub's defense collapsed, and the Marlins forced a game-seven. Once again, I'd say it was the Yips. Game seven didn't go the Cub's way either; the Marlins overcame Kerry Wood and a 5 -3 deficit to win the pennant 9-6 over the Cubs. They'd beat the Yankees for the series in six games.

I think the Royals won the 1985 series partly because the Cardinals couldn't put Denkinger's lousy call out of their minds and take care of business. It was the same thing with the 2003 Cubs; they didn't get to win the pennant because they couldn't put the Bartman incident out of their mind and finish off the Marlins in game six, and if I remember correctly, it still seemed to bother them during the seventh game of that series.

I may be in the minority here, but I like the human element of the games. For me, it's all part of why the games are played. Don't get me wrong, good umpiring is essential, but noninterference calls, or even the umpire looking at the video back at MLB's Mothership, are human. What may look like to all of us to be clear and convincing evidence to overturn a call might not be to the trained eye. In this case, it wasn't.

Fox 4 reports that Major League Baseball said in a statement, “After viewing all relevant angles, the replay official could not definitively determine that the fielder tagged the runner prior to the runner touching second base. Additionally, the replay official could not definitively determine that the runner failed to maintain contact with the base as the fielder was applying the tag.”

So, the Yankees won game one. Our own sports guy and Smith-Cotton Tigers football analyst, Ty Walker, pointed out that historically, since Major League Baseball adopted this playoff format, teams that lose game 1 in a division series are 1-8 in advance to the playoffs.

Yet, here's the thing: as a franchise, the Royals have beat the odds with improbable comebacks in playoff series more than once. So, to think that's impossible with this team isn't giving them their due.

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The Royals mantra has been one game at a time all season long. Now isn't the time to change that—Royals manager Matt Quatraro, catcher Salvador Perez, second baseman Michael Massey, and the entire team must let that bad call and Saturday's loss roll off their back. Like the losing streaks, bad games, and occasional slumps the team went through this year.

The Yankees are a formidable opponent, yet what's worse than losing to them? Losing to them because you got a case of the yips over a bad call. We're a better team than that. Let's go out and come home from the Bronx with the series tied 1-1. If that happens, I like our chances very much.