Game Three: Cardinals 5 - Red Sox 4

Well, I was tired as I sat down to watch the third game of the World Series last night, and there were times during the game that I was close to packing it in and going to bed, but am I glad I didn't!

If you care at all about this stuff, you already know how the game ended - the Cardinals winning in the bottom of the ninth with a Walk Off Obstruction call against Sox third baseman Will Middlebrooks.  I don't know this for certain, but I am pretty sure that neither the Cardinals nor any of the other 29 teams in the majors spend a lot of time practicing this play in Spring Training.

Just a couple of thoughts:

• As the play happened in real time, the thought ran through my head in a nano-second that "isn't that interference with the baserunner?"  Honest to God, I really did think that.  So did Mrs. Grandstander.
• The replay showed clearly that third base umpire Jim Joyce immediately pointed to the tangle at third to signal the obstruction.  Home plate umpire Dana DeMuth merely confirmed that when he signaled back to Joyce after Allan Craig crossed the plate.
• The call was definitely the correct one.  And as it was apparent from his body language when he went to argue the call, even John Farrell knew it.
• Friend Stephanie Liscio mentioned on Facebook that while she didn't see the play, she was listening to the Boston announcers on the radio, and even they said it was a correct call.
• Had this play happened in the third or fourth inning, it would have merely been an interesting footnote to the game.  Since it happened in the bottom of the ninth and ended the game, it immediately became an Immortal Play.  How about we christen it "The Immaculate Obstruction"?
• And wouldn't it have been something if this had been the seventh game of the Series?

Speaking of Facebook, I have to say thank you to Mark Zuckerberg for giving baseball fans  the ability to instantaneously share such a ball game.  It was like I was at the ball park with Al Blumkin, Joe Risacher, Tim Baker, Madison McEntire, Stephanie Liscio, and dozens of others watching this game.  It was great!

It also proved one of baseball's oldest cliches: Every time you go to a ball game, you might see something you have never seen before.  Or, as Al Blumkin put it, just when you think you've seen it all, baseball proves that you haven't.  

Check and double-check!