AND THE BEAT GOES ON

Another controversy in the Saturday game in New York. Again, the Red Sox were on the dirty end of the stick. I can't say I'm unhappy about it, but it does seem a little cruel.
The Sox challenged a call at 2nd base when the Yanks Dean Anna appeared to briefly lose contact with the bag as he got up. The Sox infielder held the tag on him the whole time and then asked the ump to call him out. The replays CLEARLY showed Anna off the base while the tag was still on him, but after reviewing the play, the umps refused to overturn the call. MLB's excuse was that there wasn't a replay available that made it possible to overturn the call. That's funny. Yes network's replay was crystal clear as was Boston's. MLB has said that they will view every replay that exists; the replay center is in New York as was the game, but somehow... Sometime Monday, Joe Torre will probably have a press conference announcing that the replay system is working as expected, which apparently means the major market teams are getting the benefit of the doubt. Replay system or not, if this happened to Billy Martin, he would have drawn blood out there.
http://mlb.mlb.com/mlb/gameday/index.jsp?gid=2014_04_12_bosmlb_nyamlb_1&mode=video

Luckily, I don't ever listen to John Sterling and Suzyn Waldman on the radio. Sterling tries to come up with a special home run call for every Yankee. The one he has chosen for Brian McCann is (hope you're sitting down), "Oh, McCann can, yes McCann can..."  sung to the tune of "Can Can." Even Suzyn Waldman has to be holding her fingers in her ear on that one.

Girardi says one of the reasons the Yanks wanted McCann is his ability to nurture young pitchers, and he is part of the reason the youngsters on the NY staff are doing so well. That and his ability, "...to frame pitches so well," which we all know, fools them dumb umpires all the time.

In spite of the fact that ball clubs continue to baby pitchers by limiting innings, pitch count and warmups, pitchers are dropping like flies. There have been SEVEN Tommy John surgeries so far this year and multiple shoulder injuries. Come on all you pitching coaches, did you ever consider that Nolan Ryan might be right?

***THEY SAID IT***
"As usual, they will beat each other up in the AL East. It's divisional Fratricide."  -- Bob Ryan
"During a minor league hockey scuffle, a St. Charles Chill player got ejected for biting an opponent. Fans were shocked! A hockey player with teeth?"  -- RJ Currie
"One man at the Masters saw Rory McIlroy’s face  in a pastry and bet $1,600 on the golfer.   It’s also one of the few times John Daly’s face wasn’t seen in a pastry."  -- Bill Littlejohn
"Gaylord Perry has to be shaking his head over this Michale Pineda alleged pine-tar controversy. As in, “Dude, Vaseline is colorless.”"  -- Janice Hough
"A 54-year-old woman will try out to be an NFL cheerleader. Hey, if she doesn't mind standing in front of 60,000 fans in nothing but two postage stamps and some twine, more power to her."  -- Brad Dickson
"It’s “Undie Sunday” at the Bakersfield (Calif.) Condors hockey game Sunday, when fans get to throw undergarments on the ice, for charity, after the Condors score their first goal.Looks like they’ve scheduled a hockey game — until the Tom Jones concert breaks out."  -- Dwight Perry
"When asked about Derek Jeter being held out of the game yesterday: "I wasn't hired to run a farewell tour."  -- Joe Girardi

"Connecticut beat Kentucky at AT&T Stadium in Dallas to win the NCAA Basketball Tournament. The only thing weird about the game was that Jerry Jones did not show up on either sideline in the second half."  -- TC Chong

CP-