“Decent Attempt”?
By As any Mets or Giants fans among our readership are aware, Phil Cuzzi put on an umpiring display of the kind I haven’t seen since the late Charlie Williams left the game. Well, actually, it was worse; it sort of combined Williams’ seemingly random strike zone and safe/out calls with Joe West’s even temper. The culmination was a ludicrously blown call at the plate on what should have been the winning run for the Giants. What makes it really special is the justification, which takes attempts to justify the de facto “every play is a force play” rule employed by lazy umpires to a whole new level:
Cuzzi said that he had not yet seen the replay. “I’ll look at it, but I figured I’d eat first,” he said, laughing. “He made a decent attempt to put the tag on him. That’s what it looked to me, and that’s why I called him out.