Michael fired off a little flip on the Baseball is Fun Twitter account this afternoon, and it’s an all-timer. Truly, one of my favorite baseball plays ever.
And it’s solely because of what an unconscionably awful call it was. I think it might be my favorite horrible call ever:
When making your dinner reservations >>> getting the call right. pic.twitter.com/YA4bo5ruGJ
— Baseball is Fun (@flippingbats) May 3, 2020
Bonus fun from this clip? It stars three former Cubs: Ben Zobrist, Joe Maddon, and Joe Nathan (yes, he was briefly a Cub!).
You never see Ben Zobrist lose it like that, and you also rarely see Joe Maddon come out with such vigor about balls and strikes. They knew what had just happened. It was so bad that it was hilarious if you were anyone not affiliated with the Rays.
The Nathan reaction is what seals this one, because your eyes tell you it was a horrible call. And then when the pitcher himself is dumbfounded that he just got a strike call to end the game and record his 300th career save? That’s when you know. This call was in a class of its own.
You can read how FanGraphs treated the pitch the day after it happened, and the conclusion was, yes, A.J. Pierzynski made the pitch look worse than it was by how he caught it, but it was an exceptionally bad call – Brooks had it not even remotely close to the strike zone.
In conclusion … mistakes were made:
HP ump Marty Foster on call to end #Rays game: "Had I had a chance to do it again I wouldn't call that pitch a strike.''
— Marc Topkin (@TBTimes_Rays) April 9, 2013