"YOU'RE BETTER THAN THAT. BLUE"

has always been my favorite thing to yell at a baseball umpire when he can hear me. It's not mean nor malicious. It simply gets the point across. Or so I think.

ESPN classic had a 30 minute show on the other day entitled something like, Don't Blame Don Denkinger for the Cardinals 1985 World Series Loss. I'm a little shaky on all the details, but I think I have most of them.
It was a very poor show that utilized circular or simply bad logic throughout.

First you must understand that I am one who will go to my grave believing Denkinger cost the Cardinals the world championship. I am also one who would tell others to get over it, but I can't. Finally, from what I understand Denkinger is a great guy and an excellent umpire. He just missed an obvious call at an inopportune time.

On with the show. Their 5th reason why he didn't cost the Cardinals the Series title was that Vince Coleman was run over by a tarp in the freakiest of freak accidents and had to sit out the World Series. Until the 9th inning of Game Six, it didn't matter. The game and Series were all but over.

Their 4th reason was that the Cardinals ahouldn't have been there. Lassorda had told Tom Nedienfuer not to give Jack Clark a fastball to hit in Game 6 of the NLCS.
Nedienfeur didn't listen; Clark hit it out and the Dodgers were toast. Non sequitur. The Cardinals were in the World Series and not the Dodgers, Duh.

Their third reason: the Cardinals only hit.185 in the WS. So, they were still two outs away from the title if Denkinger makes the call.

Their second reason which is by far the best is that after the blown call, they collapsed. Breaks went against them, Darrell Porter was terrible, and they just didn't suck it up. But then they go stupid and say (and interview) Keith Hernandez about the curse of Number 37, his old number. You see the Cardinals gave Hernandez to the Mets after they discovered he was using drugs. He had been an outstanding player (co MVP in 1979), but Whitey wouldn't tolerate him. So because of the Hernandez curse, bad things happened to St. Louis.

The number one reason not to blame Denkinger--they still had Game 7 to play. I vividly remember making the analogy that that would be like asking a woman for sex the day after she had been raped. I also remember telling my son that the series was over after Dane Iorg's hit in the ninth inning of Game 6. No way could the Birds win. Even with John Tudor pitching. By the way the home plate umpire for Game 7 was Don Denkinger.

Bad series, bad call, bad show. Twenty-one years later, I say, "We was robbed!!"

O