Has everyone seen the movie King Pin? If not I'll spare you the details, but long story short, Woody Harelson plays a professional bowler named Roy Munson. In a bizzare twist of fate, Munson gets his hand cut off in a bowling alley machine and lives the rest of his life with a fake hand. He comes to realize that among the bowling community the term getting Munson'd has come to symbolize being up creek without a paddle. With that in mind, the Orioles were Nelson'd in last night's 2-0 loss to the Texas Rangers. In short, the Rangers got a solo homer, and an add-on run to close out the scoring for the game...
...but there was so much more to it than that. With Texas leading 1-0 in the sixth, Nick Markakis stepped to the plate. Texas starter C.J. Wilson (who pitched a spectacular game I might add) threw a pitch that appeared to be off the plate, and it was called strike one. Markakis, who rarely even shoots a hairy eyeball towards an umpire much less complains, seemed to not like home plate umpire Jeff Nelson's call. The automated strike zone on MASN seemed to back up the fact that the pitch was off the plate. The called strike two was ever worse; the pitch wasn't remotely close the the zone. Markakis again seemed to voice his displeasure with the call. As you can imagine, by this time Wilson was catching onto the fact that the fix was kind of in on Markakis and the Orioles, so he threw another pitch off the plate...strike three called! Markakis was justifiably fuming by this point, and he continued the argument. By the time manager Buck Showalter got to home plate, Markakis had earned his first career ejection.
As I said, in my opinion Markakis was justified in his anger because those pitches weren't remotely close to strikes. MASN's Jim Hunter went off on Nelson for the better part of five minutes saying that there was no question that Nelson enacted retribution on Markakis for saying something to begin with. I TOTALLY AGREE. I majored in broadcasting, so I know that you're supposed to remain objective. However sometimes you just have to tell it like it is, and to Hunter's credit that's exactly what he did. And go figure, in a show of cowardice Nelson sent word through the crew chief that he would not be commenting on the incident after the game. MLB really needs to examine how they evaluate their umpires after this season, because that's a perfect example of ol' blue getting out of control. I understand that bad calls are going to happen from time to time. (And for the record, while I'm a proponent of instant replay I would not want it for balls and strikes.) However as Jim Hunter pointed out, Nelson appeared to enact some sort of vengeance on Nick Markakis, and that's not how things are supposed to be handled. The fact that a quiet guy like Markakis even opened his mouth should tell Nelson that perhaps he should consider that he was wrong. Instead, Nelson appeared to take umbrage at the fact that a quiet guy like Markakis had the nerve to pick him as the guy at which to lash out.
Throughout the rest of the game, Matt Wieters held every pitch remotely close to the zone for an extra few seconds to let Nelson have a good look at it. This was probably a show of gamesmanship in that Wieters played to the home crowd at Camden Yards. (For the record, I LOVE IT!) Nelson had made it clear already that he was an enemy of Birdland, so why not mak him feel the heat? In the top of the ninth after Matt Albers appeared to be getting squeezed, Nelson started to lecture Wieters about something (presumably he felt that Wieters was showing him up by framing the balls); Buck Showalter immediately came out of the dugout, and in an Earl Weaver-like red-faced tirade, earned his first ejection as an Oriole. In that moment, Showalter took all of the frustrations of Birdland throughout this season (with regards to umpires and other things) and put them on his back. On behalf of all fans, I tip my cap to him.
So if getting Munson'd is being up a creek without a paddle, I suppose getting Nelson'd would be considered having to fight with a hand tied behind your back. As I said, Jeff Nelson declined to comment after the game, which I feel is extremely cowardly on his part. Even though I disagreed with just about everything that he did out there, I'd at least be willing to hear his side of the story and let him have his say. Certainly all he would have said would have been that he felt they were strikes. However as I said, this speaks to a greater problem in MLB in that some umpires try to make the game about them. Until last night I never had an opinion about Jeff Nelson, however odds are nobody in Baltimore's going to offer to take him to Bo Brooks after a game anytime soon. I'll be at the yard on Sunday...odds are you'll hear at least one boo when Jeff Nelson's announced before the game.
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