This is a screen shot from MLB.TV of Kevin Youkilis touching the bag well ahead of Howie Kendrick in the bottom of the sixth inning Friday night in ALDS 1. First base umpire CB Bucknor — who is standing in perfect position just beyond the upper right-hand corner of the picture — called Kendrick safe.
Does CB stand for “completely blind”?
The Angels led the Red Sox 3-0 at this point, so this jaw-droppingly bad call likely had no effect on the final outcome, but you cannot say that about Bucknor’s blown call at first with Kendrick (again!) in the third. If Jeff Mathis leads off the fifth rather than ending the fourth, maybe Torii Hunter doesn’t go deep off Jon Lester.
Or maybe LAA wins 12-4. Who knows? … And that’s the point. I’d like this series to be decided by the actual events on the field. The embarrassing performance of this crew last night — there was also a blown call at third base (which went against the Angels) and some horrible ball-strike calls — does not bode well for rest of the games.
Crew chief Joe West: “[Bucknor] was in great position on all the plays. … It didn’t appear that any of them were real routine plays, either. Those were all tough plays. They were all bang-bang plays. … Well, I had my impression. And you see them, you’re going to have yours.”
West said this after saying he watched the replays.
Former Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling, in a post on the Sons of Sam Horn message board, saw this coming as soon as the umpiring assignments were announced: “FWIW that might be the worst umpiring crew in the history of post season baseball. … Joe West, the umpire who is well known to hate the Sox as much as any man ever. At least in Joe’s defense he’s a decent ump, albeit one who has stated EXPLICITLY on the field he holds grudges and gets even, CB, Gibby [Greg Gibson] … just suck, no two ways about it. … CB has never been good enough to ID a bad or missed call …”
Bucknor was voted Worst Umpire In Baseball in SI players polls in both 2003 and 2006. He ran away with the award both times.
And he will be behind the plate tonight.
[First posted at The Joy of Sox.]
