the worst call ever

Don Deckinger can now die in peace knowing that he didn't make the worst call of all time in baseball post-season history.

To reset, it is the bottom of the ninth, two outs, nobody on with AJ Pierzynski batting against Kelvim Escobar. On the 3-2 pitch, the batter swings and misses, the umpire calls him out, the catcher rolls the ball to the pitcher's mound, and the batter runs to first.

It would have been tragically easy for Paul to just tag Pierzynksi. But he caught the ball on the fly, as clearly seen by instant replay, which of course is not available to the umpires. The bottom line in my mind is that the umpire clearly signalled the batter out. As soon as he did so, the fielders for the Angels were running off the field, so there wasn't a player covering first even if they wanted to retire him. On the replay, Adam Kennedy is immediately pumping his fist as the umpire did in calling him out. You see plays all the time - say when a tag is missed at home but the runner missed the plate - where the umpire makes no signal whatsoever. This time he clearly and definitively called him out.

Instead of heading to the top of the tenth inning with a chance at a commanding 2-0 lead, they instead allow a steal and a double and the Sox win game two. I certainly hope Scoscia protested the game. They need to go out tomorrow and finish it, tied 1-1 into the 10th inning.

Ridiculous.