Another week, another Griff Bag, another hijacking. Sound about right? Because there’s a new slice of read-submitted insanity up at the Toronto Star, and… like… what else do you really want us to do here on a Monday morning? Try to come to grips with decent pitching performances from Chad Jenkins and Ramon Ortiz? A Triple-A disaster for Ricky Romero? Emilio Bonifacio perhaps not being terrible?
Fuck that. Let’s just let Griff’s readers get under the ol’ skin and watch the magic happen.
As always, I have not read any of Griffin’s answers.
If there’s a question you’d like me to answer, email it to askrich@thestar.ca and maybe he’ll select it for a future mail bag. Fingers crossed!
Q. I have watched the J.A. Happ injury (on Tuesday) over and over again on the networks and one of the biggest questions I have is in regards to the umpires. These are people who make calls in minutiae on a minute by minute basis which will affect the outcome of a game, but when it came to a decision that may have affected someone’s life . . . they chose to do nothing until someone had run 180 feet. Will the umpires be disciplined in any way? Thanks,
Jeff
I believe it was John Gibbons who said that he didn’t blame the umpires because, like everybody else, they were stunned by what had happened to Happ. While maybe that’s just him saying the “right” thing, it seems entirely plausible to me, and so, while I think you’re absolutely right that play should have been stopped as soon as Happ was hit, and that getting him medical attention needs to be the priority, I’m not sure any kind of discipline is necessary for the umpires. Like, I haven’t looked into it, but I can’t imagine that they’re standing by their call to not halt play as soon as possible.
