Watching Jeff DaVanon

Bullshit.

My anger is matched only by my frustration that Josh didn't just tag him for the heck of it. Rex Hudler always says a pitch is "too close to take", and this was the embodiment of that in a different scenario. I have lots of love for Josh, and I hate to see him at the center of something like this.

I'd love it if in the next game every Angel batter trotted over to first whenever they felt like it. Pop-out? Head on over to first. Strike-out? I thought they were just giving away first to anyone who showed up?

We were not robbed of the game, we gave that up all on our own with errors, quiet bats and a certain dullness to our play.

But we were robbed of the opportunity to pull it out. But now we come home to our house, with our pissed off fans, and our anger. And I say bring it. Bring it. Now we are in this. Now this is freaking personal. It might just be the best thing that could have happened.

As best I can tell (the crew chief was in RF tonight, indicating that the officials are rotating from home to the RF foul line) , the reigning assclown will be on the RF foul line on Friday. This is right in front of us, the officials have been maybe 20 feet away the previous playoff games. This is going to be interesting. I won't throw anything, but other suggestions are welcome.

Edited to add: The best breakdown of the bloody call is over at Chronicles. Read it. This has definitely illuminated a certain gray area in baseball officiating. How is a catcher to know that the ump believes that a ball is in the dirt? I've had to have the "the 3rd strike isn't an automatic out if the ball is in the dirt" thing explained to me a number of times, but never did I think to ask "how does anyone know it is in the dirt?" thinking, as a neophyte tends to do, that the "in -the-dirtness" of a ball should be self-evident.