Happy Jerry Meals Day

[Edgy MD]

In the early morning hours of this date in 2011 a 19-inning game that began the night before ended as Mike McKenry swept a tag across Julio Lugo's thigh, but somehow the indirectness of the sweeping motion fooled umpire Jerry Meals into thinking the tag was missed.

The blown call wasn't the worst ever (despite the title of the video embedded below), but it widely mocked and reviled, making it onto the national news, and is now considered to be the straw that broke the camel's back — the blown call that tipped the opinion of the lords of baseball to embrace instant replay, perhaps not so much for the integrity of the game but to insulate it against similar future ridicule.



Ironies abound. The first is that while video evidence suggests the sweeping tag did indeed lead to contact between the glove and the runner's thigh, the evidence isn't so clear and convincing as all that, despite what Diane Sawyer says, and the call might well not be overturned under the current system.

The second irony is that this play takes place before the Buster Posey reforms were instituted, and there's nothing stop McKenry from burying the tag into Lugo's crotch and halting the slide with his shinguards, but he gives it the Olé! treatment. He's certainly in position — the kind of position that used to justify any call of "out" no matter how ambiguous the tag contact, under the logic that "the throw beat the runner."

But safe the runner was. Meals went on to umpire through the 2022 season, but as you might guess, he and his family were broadly harassed over this call, Joe Torre kind of threw him under the bus, and instant replay was on its way.

[Frayed Knot]

Too bad for the Pirates that there was only one out because the batter (a pitcher) falls on his face about 15 feet from home right as the throw was being released.
Of course if there were two outs the throw almost certainly goes to 1st to begin with but with his momentum coming in maybe a throw home was his only thought.
But, assuming there were actually two gone, if the catcher could have kept his head about him when all others were losing theirs, a throw to 1st in time for the force out would have negated the run despite the runner touching home prior to the out being recorded.

Now THAT would have been a totally wacky play!

[Edgy MD]

I think Jerry Meals also had the disadvantage of being the shortest umpire of his era. Clint Hurdle looks like he's going to eat the guy.