I'm not saying it's right, but a player's reaction can be a useful clue on close calls.
If a pitch is borderline but the catcher is framing it, I'm likely to call it a ball because by bringing her glove in, she's telling me, "I thought it was outside, but maybe I can sneak it over and get you to call a strike."
With football, though, it's very common for a runner to push the ball forward after he's tackled, so I didn't think twice about Ben doing it on that play. But the fact is, he did it—and while it might just be instinct, it could also be that he knew (or thought) that he didn't get in.
So, Big Ben goes on TV and confirms to the Nation what the Nation already knew, that he's a big fat cheater? Yeah, that's groundbreaking stuff there, Letterman.
Ben went down quite a few notches in my mind after that play, and the Referees' Association (except for Ed Hochuli) went with him.
I've got a feeling that the only place that crew is going next January and February is the golf course. Truthfully, the block below the waist on Seattle's QB is the clinching call there: that's a whole crew screw-up, because they could have talked about it and fixed it.
Even all the Steelers fans in the room with me (me, all alone, sitting in my seahawks jersey) agreed it wasn't a touchdown. How could they rule that a touchdown? Fuckers.
Of course, having said that, it's the Superbowl, there are the intricacies of judging a game that big and, well, damn, sometimes the call goes for you and sometimes against. This time. And a lot of other times in this game, they went against my seahawks. It just sucks that Seattle dominated most of the game and because of bad officiating, they lost.
I don't even follow football, and I don't care for the Steelers or the Seahawks... but that one play really irked me. It really seemed to me like he pushed it out on purpose. And I was SO SURE that the replay was going to overturn it. And then it never did!
If they hadn't piddled around the rest of the game, they might not have lost. I'm sorry, but I've seen Mighty-Mite teams run a better two minute drill than the Seahawks did.
See, I was watching, and rooting for the Seahawks. When I saw it, I thought there was a good chance that the ball crossed the plane of the goal line (which is all that it has to do), and there certainly was no way to tell for sure, from the replay, that it didn't. I think that the right call was made on the play. But I'm one of the about 10% or so that believe so.
There were many more cases of flat-out bad calls in that game, to be picking on that one in particular. And it's not like the Steelers wouldn't have kicked the field goal on the next play, anyhow. Those 4 points wouldn't have made the difference.
I know that when it comes to the score and the total outcome of the game, it really didn't make much of a difference. But when it comes to sportsmanship....
Yeah, but as I said, by my eye, he had gotten it across as much as he needed to, and even if I didn't think he did, I don't think that there was enough visual evidence to overturn the call on the field.
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If a pitch is borderline but the catcher is framing it, I'm likely to call it a ball because by bringing her glove in, she's telling me, "I thought it was outside, but maybe I can sneak it over and get you to call a strike."
With football, though, it's very common for a runner to push the ball forward after he's tackled, so I didn't think twice about Ben doing it on that play. But the fact is, he did it—and while it might just be instinct, it could also be that he knew (or thought) that he didn't get in.
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Ben went down quite a few notches in my mind after that play, and the Referees' Association (except for Ed Hochuli) went with him.
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There were many more cases of flat-out bad calls in that game, to be picking on that one in particular. And it's not like the Steelers wouldn't have kicked the field goal on the next play, anyhow. Those 4 points wouldn't have made the difference.
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I'm pretty bummed that Seattle lost, though. :(
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