Eddings' Moment
My team isn't in this, so I can expend my effort sympathizing with the umpire, in this case Doug Eddings. Good work over a number of years in any profession can be forgotten in one unfortunate moment, one misstep.
That moment happened tonight for home plate umpire Eddings, who ruled that Angels catcher Josh Paul did not catch strike three in White Sox' catcher A.J. Pierzynski's 9th inning at-bat. Replays showed that Paul caught the ball. Pierzynski, though, after initially starting back to the dugout after he swung and missed to -- what most thought -- end the inning, decided he might as well run to first to see what happened. What happened was that Eddings, who had just made the arm motion indicating that Pierzynski was out, decided that the ball hit the ground.
Paul knew he had caught the ball. When catchers are not sure they have caught strike three, they merely reach out and tag the hitter, or make a leisurely toss to first. Paul did not do those things. He got up out of his crouch, started jogging toward his dugout, and rolled the ball to the mound. Inning over.
Except it wasn't. Pierzynski ended up on first, Pablo Ozuna pinch ran, and Joe Crede became the hero of a moment that no one will remember as heroic because of the fact that it should not have happened.
No umpire aspires for a Don Denkinger moment, just as no player aspires for a Bill Buckner (or Leon Durham) moment. That is what happened to Eddings tonight. The White Sox may have won the game eventually anyway, but it ended before it should have.
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Eddings
Here's the question I have, and it's a question no one has answered yet: why wasn't A.J. out when Eddings signaled him out? I would have no sympathy for the Angels if Eddings hadn't done that. But how were they supposed to know it was a live play when the ump signals him out?
I'm sure Scioscia is still asking the same question. This seems like a monumental blunder to me, not just for Eddings, but the whole crew, all of whom were apparently unable to speak up and say, "Uh, Doug? You called him out, dude. So, um, he's out."
To me, whether or not Paul caught it is immaterial once that call gets made. If there's a rule that says otherwise, I'd be happy to have it pointed out; can't find one myself, which is likely the root of the problem.
The Out/Strike Call
Yes, exactly. As Rich Lederer stated in the comments section of this post, "the clenched fist signaling a strike after extending his arm outward is redundant and was the cause for confusion in this particular case."
Eddings said in the post-game conference, "My interpretation is that's my strike 3 mechanic, when it's a swinging strike."
What Eddings did did not look like a strike 3 mechanic, it looked like an out mechanic.
The Out Signal
David Pinto at Baseball Musings gets help from one of his readers demonstrating that Eddings' motion was, in fact, an out signal.
Rowand's at-bat
And the play before the Pierzynski at-bat shows Eddings' strike and out mechanics.
out mechanics
This whole debate strikes (no pun intended) me as beside the point, too. Even if we grant that the motion he made was his strike 3 mechanic, it's still the out mechanic of approximately EVERY OTHER UMPIRE IN THE UNIVERSE. The Angels shouldn't have to go to some sort of baseball Zapruder film to determine whether it's a strike 3 call or an out call.
This isn't rocket science. If you raise your hand and make a fist, it's universally accepted as an out call. If Eddings can't figure out a way to do this that isn't so confusing, or if he thinks it's just his right to have a signal that means something different than the same signal from any other umpire, he has no business umpiring a Little League game, much less an MLB playoff game.