I saw this YouTube video earlier today where a HS baseball team intentionally drills an Umpire. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tsFSALrA1o) The clip shows the pitch about 4 times, once in slow motion, so you can really see what is going on. For me, it only took one viewing. As somebody who caught all through HS and one year in college before switching primarily to 1st base, I knew exactly what happened.

There are always umpires that get under your skin as a player. They get on a power trip, or more often than not, they are just so bad at their job that you can’t understand why they are paid to be behind the plate. Granted being an umpire is tough. I’ve done it for Little League games and know that it is no walk in the park, but some of these guys are flat-out brutal. Sometimes they are so bad that you just want to punish them for it.

I can honestly say that anybody who has caught for the majority of their baseball career has thought about doing just what these kids did. The pitcher delivered a high fastball and the catcher, acting as if he thinks a breaking ball is coming, slides to his knees to block the pitch, thus leaving the ump wide open for a beating. Normally the catcher wouldn’t act like he was going to catch the ball, then instantaneously drop to his knees and duck like this kid did, but that’s another story.

The thing is, while I have thought about doing this time and time again, I have never done it, nor even heard of it being done until today. It’s a pipe dream. It’s something you think about in your head and you smile about, like those visions you have about beating the snot out of the school bully. But once its enacted in real life, it becomes more than a dream of retribution. It can be dangerous. 

Umpires have been knocked unconscious time and time again during games and hitting one square in the face with a fastball is a good way to have it happen again. But even if you don’t care about the umpires safety, this play is never carried out because people usually have enough self-preservation instincts to keep the idea in their heads. What happens if you get thrown out of your championship game for it? What happens if your coach knows what’s up and benchs you? Or kicks you off the team? Or, if you’re like this catcher, you lose your spot on the college baseball team you were planning to be a part of?

Bad calls will always exist in sports. Umpires will miss balls and strikes. Refs will miss fouls, or make them up. It just comes with the game. If you want to get retribution, you take the ump out of the game. You make it so he doesn’t have to make calls. You carve batters up. You make them swing and miss; you allow your defense to make plays. When you go head-to-head with an umpire or a ref, you are going to lose. As an athlete there are times to simply swallow your pride and trudge forward. When you don’t, you leave yourself open to punishment. The worst part about that? It takes the focus off how terrible the ump may have been, and puts it squarely on your shoulders.

Alliteration aside, I feel very strongly that the best baseball being played right now, isn’t being watched as much as it should be. ESPN2 has been carrying the College World Series from Omaha, Nebraska, but, as usual, not enough people are giving college baseball the love it deserves.

Not only is the sound of the metal bat a refreshing summer noise, but the balls-out effort and non-stop hustle remind you of what athletics is all about. As people watched a team in Purple and Gold get pummeled and pretty much give up a few days ago, 18-23 year old kids who still only dream of making it to the big stage were grinding it out on the field.

So far in this years World Series, I have seen more late-inning, come from behind games that any year I can remember. Just the other day Georgia came back to grab a 4-3 win over Stanford and LSU scored three runs on a double in the bottom of the 9th to eliminate favored Rice. That doesn’t even account for the biggest surprise of the postseason, which is Fresno State. A team that was ranked 4th in their Regional (I’l explain later) and hasn’t lost a game on their way to being in the finals of their bracket in Omaha. They’re the first #4 Regional Seed to make the World Series and now have a legitimate shot of taking home the crown. It’s like last years run by the Rockies, but times four. 

For those who may not know how college baseball’s postseason is set up, here it goes. After the regular season the NCAA gives automatic bids to conference winners and at-large bids (like the NCAA basketball tournament). They set up Regionals, each consisting of four teams, clearly made up by the region of the country they are from. These teams face off in a double elimination tournament, the winner advancing (Fresno State was a #4 seed in their own region, which means they were deemed one of the worst teams to even make the postseason, thats around 60 teams!) The winners from each regional then face off in a best of three series with another team from a nearby region, the winner advancing. That leaves 8 teams who qualify for the World Series, which is another double elimination tournament split into two, four-team brackets.

As it stands right now Georgia, the #8 seed in the country, and Fresno St. are the only teams at 2-0. LSU and North Carolina, both 1-1, will face off today at 7 PM to see who gets to play Fresno St. Now, because Fresno and Georgia are 2-0 and this is a double elimination tournament, the winner of tonights game and Stanford, who is 2-1 and plays Georgia on Friday, will have to win twice to advance to the championship.

With ESPN doing the right thing and covering the games, its time baseball fans do the right thing and tune in. This is baseball at its finest. These kids are playing with pure passion and no desire other than to win the game. I saw Miami’s RF, Raben, make three diving catches and 1 catch into the wall in one game. It’s hustle that you just don’t see on the field in every MLB game. It’s a joy to watch and I felt it my duty to try and get more people to tune in. You won’t be disappointed.