5 Reasons you can't blame Don Deckinger

ESPN Classic runs a show called "Five Reasons You Can't Blame...." and they look at something that conventional wisdom says happened and then gives five reasons why it may not have happened that way.

It is really cool, and I was excited when they did one about the 1985 World Series. In the bottom of the ninth in game six, Don Deckinger blew a call at first base with the Royals trailing in the series 3-2 and the game 1-0. He called Jorge Orta safe at first when he was clearly out by half a step. It was a reasonably close play, but it is the kind that major league umpires get right roughly 100% of the time, give or take.

Anyway, the Royals manage to rally and score two runs to win the game 2-1, the Cardinals implode in Game Seven against Saberhagen and lose 11-0 and the Royals win their only world championship. Go Royals! They were the better team, had better starting pitching, had better defense, had George Brett in the best season of a Hall of Fame career. That the Cardinals were as close as they were was a fluke anyway, just for the record.

Here are the five reasons given on the show:
5. The tarp that ran over Vince Coleman in the NLCS.
4. The expansion of the league championship series to seven games.
3. Dumb moves by Lasorda in the NLCS.
2. The defensive miscues by the Cardinals after the play.
1. The complete emotional meltdown in game seven.

Now this is the dumbest episode of the show ever. Numbers 5, 4, and 3 are all true statements. Vince Coleman - in the greatest playoff injury of all time - got run over by the tarp covering the infield because it was run by a machine at the pace of 2.5 mph. This cat stole 110 bases that year and got run down by a tarp machine. It is true that the Royals trailed the Blue Jays 3-1, and if the LCS had not changed to best of seven, they would have had no chance to win games 5-7 and win the series. And Lasorda was just plain dumb to pitch to Jack Clark in game six, and if he hadn't made that mistake, the Dodgers may have represented the NL in the world series.

But those are all stupid reasons because the Cardinals had already overcome them by the time the bad call was made.

The bottom line is that the Cardinals played like ass after the play, looking like the Royals of 2005. They had a dropped pop-up, threw to the wrong base, and had a passed ball because of crossed signs between the pitcher and catcher. If (and this is a gigantic if) the rest of the inning played out the same way it happened, the Royals would have tied the score and had two outs with the winning run on second, and at least extra innings would have been assured. Not to mention that the Cardinals had their 21 game winner with a sub-two era going in game seven. So if the Cardinals fans want to blame anything, it is their own shoddy play.

It is too bad this show didn't recognize that fact. By making such a lame case, it perpetuates the myth that the Royals lucked into the series win. Must have been written by Cardinals fans.