We’ve all seen the play. It’s been looped on the Times Square trinitron. It’s visible from space. It’s the defining moment of our century. Well it must be, given the amount of air-time it’s gotten. Maybe if we see it one more time…

It was a huge blown call with serious repercussions. And crazy as that huge break seems the MLB has exacerbated the problem by trotting Doug Eddings back out there for the rest of the series.

He was umping 3B last night in Anaheim. 3B! He was twenty feet away from the first row of 30,000 something fans sitting on the left side of the field. How could they possibly defend putting this guy out there? I’ve sat first-row 3B for a long time and the amount of verbal garbage that gets thrown the umps’ way in a D-Rays-Blue Jays game is pathetic. Imagine an ALCS tilt with public enemy number one manning the baseline.

Eddings made a bad call, but trotting him out in front of 50,000 hecklers isn’t the way to solve this problem. At the very least you think the blown call would be enough to get him replaced in his crew’s rotation. This was, after all, a serious error of judgment. It’s like a back-judge calling a missed game-tying FG good. Or a referee calling a penalty shot in OT on a guy who trips over the blue line. Why have him out there if the stress-factor alone is going to put the guy on edge?

I don’t blame Eddings for missing the call, and I don’t think he should be banished from the MLB. It’s called human error. And since the MLB has, for years, insisted that baseball remain a 100% flesh-and-bone game, there’s no going back and biting their tongue. This is a game that prides itself on being human. And, in a lot of cases, in being wrong. Just think how much better baseball would be if balls and strikes were called electronically. No more whining batters. No more Tom Glavine-strikes.

I have no idea what Eddings went through last night, but I can guess it was a non-stop barrage of poorly phrased jokes, obscenities, and signage. Maybe that’s his punishment. Or maybe baseball just blew it. Again.