Ichabod Crane at Third Base

Last night we were watching the Yankees game.  OK, not together, but virtually together.  I was in a hotel and Andrew and I were exchanging texts.  Julie, would call me when something really interesting happened.  Which did.  A few times.

First, Nick Swisher (from the Yankees) was tagging up on third on a fly ball.  He scored.  But the Angels said he left early and the umpire at third, Tim McClelland, called him out.  On the replay, it appeared he did not in fact leave early.  They have a jumbo-tron screen in the outfield, and they showed the replay about 10 times.  On the big screen, it showed an Ichabod Crane-looking McClelland not even looking at the base.  There's a picture of the base with Nick Swisher - with Ichabod looking straight into the outfield and not at the Nick's foot.  Forty thousand fans watching.  No, wait, more like twenty million on the big, big screen. 

A few innings later, Ichabod was standing on third and probably thinking about some headless horseman somewhere.  When he looks up, he's startled to find that there are two Yankees standing near third base but neither is actually on the base.  The Angels catcher tags both of them with the ball.  Both are out, right?  Crane/McClelland, looking to play it safe, decides to call one of them out and one of the safe.  One hundred percent chance to get it fifty percent right. 

By this time, the world was wondering if Ichabod maybe needed to drink a Monster between innings.   The jumbo-tron replays pathetically showed the evidence another 10 times.  The umpires just stood with their arms crossed and pretended like they didn't see (or weren't allowed to look at) the gigantic video evidence.  I am thinking back to the old SNL skit, where they do the bubble-thoughts of Bill Swerski, the Bears fan, and he's looking really focused but thinking, "Ditka, Ditka, Ditka..."  We don't know what inside of the of the bubbles floating above McClelland's head, but it must have been pretty interesting.