The introduction of the one game playoff to Major League Baseball was supposed to infuse drama into a bland playoff structure. This change had the potential to add another angle to the umpteenth number of dimensions that exist in baseball to date. The one game playoff was supposed to enhance the integrity of competition.
Instead, the illustrious career of Chipper Jones ended in an explosion of profanities and hurricane of empty aluminum cans. Replacement official….correction left field umpire Sam Holbrook single-handedly killed the Braves season with one of the worst calls in recent memory.
In the eighth inning, a popup by Andrelton Simmons listed lazily to left field and dropped between two Cardinals. Yet Holbrook ruled that the play was a product of the infield fly rule and Simmons was out.
Again, an umpire whose job it is to patrol the outfield called the infield fly rule when the ball was at least 50 feet from the dirt.
Thanks to Holbrook, defending this one-game-winner-goes-to-play-Washington scenario is virtually indefensible. The one game playoff now looks like a moronic idea right up there with calling the 2002 All-Star Game a tie and canceling the 1994 World Series. There was a fair amount of criticism of the one game playoff entering the day, yet this horrid call ending a team’s season will ignite the fiery anger of social media users.
Holbrook will now go down in umpire infamy reserved for Jim Joyce, Tim McClelland, and Don Denkinger. Although Holbrook did not take away a perfect game, forget the rules of safe and out in the middle of a game, or rob a team of a World Series title, he ended a team’s pursuit of the Commissioner’s Trophy. Holbrook can’t show his face in Georgia after this game, and it was his own doing.
Nobody should be more upset about this call than Chipper Jones. There could not have been a worse ending for one of the classiest Atlanta Braves in recent memory. This may have been Jones’ last postseason regardless of the outcome, yet the Hall Of Fame career of Larry should not have ended as a result of a politician-like gaffe from Holbrook.
Sure Jones got an infield hit in his final at-bat as a Brave, yet that was rendered useless thanks to a ground out by Dan Uggla to cement the tragedy.
Normally the prevailing argument can be made that the Braves had other chances to win the game. Yes the call incorrectly produced a second out in the eighth inning, yet the Braves could have gotten three runs in four outs. After all, it is baseball, crazier things have happened in the postseason.
Not this time. Atlanta got shafted by whatever unpleasantly large object you choose to picture. Baseball is a game where momentum overrides stardom in the postseason, and Holbrook gutted the Braves run like a baby pig before a roast.
Jones did not deserve to have his career end this way. The Braves fans did not deserve to have their season end this way. And the team certainly did not deserve to lose this way.
But this is baseball, and anything can happen. Including NFL replacement refs wearing MLB umpire clothes and ruining what could have been a fantastic idea for everyone.
