History
does indeed repeat itself.Four years ago, I was playing with team BOHICA and it was our league tournament. We were playing the Aggies and we were in an elimination game as we had lost during the second round. I felt our team was peaking as we had dropped the number two team like a hot stone. We then dropped a close game to the Aggies.
Anyways, fate be had, and the Aggies had fallen into the loser's bracket as well. We were giving the Aggies all the fight they wanted. Now this was before we actually had an official scorer. I looked at the umpire and asked how many outs, and he said two. The next batter flew out and we came to bat in the top of the next inning. Our leadoff guy tripled and then we singled him in to tie the game. At that point one of the wives for the Aggies, comes up and says there were only two outs in the last inning, because she was keeping score. The umpire takes our run away, and we "go back in time" and he takes our run away. The Aggies come back and light us up because our momentum is gone and we lose by 10.
Friday night, I'm playing in the championship game of our league tournament against the Aggies. In the bottom of the 4th inning, we're behind 13-8. There is a runner on first base for the Aggies and their batter singles. The runner at first tries to take third and we have a great relay where the cutoff man threw a perfect strike to our third baseman who tags out the runner. The third baseman whips a throw to our second baseman and he tags out the batter who was trying to sneak into second. Bang bang play and we head to bat in the top of the fifth.
Brian comes up and hits a home run to cut the lead to 13-9. Big Ron was on deck and he had already hit a moonshot that probably went 350 feet. Ron's about to step in the box, when an Aggie wife comes up and says "There were only two outs in the last inning." I'm thinking "No fucking way this is happening again." We even have an official scorekeeper. But the official book said there were only two outs.
Our umpire doesn't take the run away but we go back in time again and the Aggies tack on 7 more runs in that inning with two outs. Suddenly it's 20-9 and our team is pissed off. We make a bit of a comeback but lose 24-20.
We come to find out via the USSSA rule book, in that situation, once a pitch is thrown in the new half inning, you can't go back in time. It's a "I'm sorry, but we as the umpire scorer screwed up."
Not only that, but the only one that can complain is the manager, not another player or a wife. What should have happend was we continue to hit in the top of the 5th and the ump should have said "Sorry guys, but that's our mistake and there's nothing we can do."
But no.
I'm not a whiner, but I'm almost to the point of agreeing with Brian that the ump was out to get us. Who knows what could have been if we went up to stick with the mojo?
I bet I wouldn't be sitting here in my runner-up shirt.
posted by Rusty @ 8:53 PM
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