Selby Article from The New York Times

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April 16, 2007, 4:03 am
Bill Selby, Meet Marco Scutaro
By Tyler Kepner

Tags: Mariano Rivera, Yankees

Five years ago in Cleveland, my colleague Jack Curry was covering for me at Jacobs Field when Bill Selby smashed a walk-off grand slam to beat Mariano Rivera. It was shocking to hear about, and ever since, if a light-hitting bench player comes up with the game on the line against Rivera, someone in the press box usually shouts Selby’s name.

Marco Scutaro (No. 19) leaped home after his walk-off homer gave the Oakland A’s a 9th-inning victory over the Yankees. (John G. Mabanglo/European Pressphoto Agency)No one has ever replicated Selby’s blast. Sure, Bill Mueller and Vernon Wells have beat Rivera with walk-off homers, but a true Selby shot takes a special kind of player. Marco Scutaro, it’s pretty clear, is that kind of player.
Consider this: before his game-ending, three-run, foul-pole homer to beat the Yankees 5-4 today, Scutaro was 1 for 20 this season, an .050 average. Dating back to the ALCS against Detroit, Scutaro was 2 for 35.
But he’s a folk hero around here, and his homer off Rivera was his ninth walk-off hit in four seasons with the A’s. Not bad for a guy whom Bobby Valentine didn’t even recognize when he was first called up to the Mets. Scutaro joined the Mets in 2002 in Cincinnati. He reported to the team hotel, saw Valentine in the lobby restaurant and extended his hand. Valentine thought he was an autograph seeker. Turned out he was his new infielder.
Today, he’s a hero. And it’s one of those very rare days when a closer bound for Cooperstown is a goat.

Buster Olney thinks the Indians should win their protest...

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From ESPN Insider...

UPDATE: MLB Denied the Indians' request.

Protest should go Indians' way

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History suggests that the Indians probably won't win their protest of Saturday's game, Jeff Zrebiec writes. The best-case scenario for the Indians would be if Major League Baseball ordered that the game be replayed from the moment that the umpires made their mistake, says Cleveland GM Mark Shapiro. Most protests have no reasonable chance for success, but if common sense prevails, the Indians will win this protest, because the precedent established by the umpires on Saturday would create such a dangerous gray area for how similar situations would be handled in the future. To review: The Orioles had runners at first and third and one out in the second inning. After Grady Sizemore made a diving catch of Ramon Hernandez's line drive, Nick Markakis tagged up and raced home. At the same time, Miguel Tejada was far off first base, and Sizemore threw to first and Tejada was doubled off -- but after Markakis crossed home plate. Markakis' run should have counted. But home-plate umpire Marvin Hudson waved off the run. And the Orioles said nothing, at that time, as the Indians noted in their letter of protest.

Two innings later, Baltimore bench coach Tom Trebelhorn walked out on the field to talk to Ed Montague about the decision -- and in the sixth inning, the umpires ordered that a run be added to the Orioles' score.

Now, if you believe in fallacy of the predetermined outcome, then this run wouldn't have made a difference. The Orioles wound up winning, 7-4, and not by one run. But baseball games are like road maps, each turn leading to the next. Anybody who has watched baseball knows that managers and players will make their decisions according to the game situation, and the score always frames the game situation. Spoke with a number of folks in Major League Baseball on Sunday, and none of them could remember an instance in which umpires retroactively gave a run to a team, the way the umpires did for the Orioles. So if Major League Baseball rejects the Cleveland protest and retroactive decisions become acceptable practice, what happens in the future?

Let's say that down the road the Orioles are playing the Angels, and Vladimir Guerrero pulls a ball down the left-field line, right near the foul pole -- and Montague, the umpire, rules it a foul ball. And then two innings later, Montague realizes that the ugly mark on the foul pole actually is due to Guerrero's line drive. Maybe he sees a replay while stopping by the men's room between innings. If his bottom line is only getting the call right, could he then, at that point, correct a mistake and give Guerrero a three-run homer? According to the precedent established on Saturday, it would seem he absolutely could do that.

What if an umpire inadvertently awards a walk to open an inning, on a 2-2 pitch, nobody says anything, and the team at bat goes on to score four runs -- and then the other umps realize, later, that the hitter shouldn't have been award first base. Can they go back and change the play?

And here's another horrifying thought: What if the exact same play that happened in Cleveland occurred next year, in a game that was ultimately decided by one run. Imagine if Montague realized his mistake during extra innings, or after the game was over? Should Montague then go back and add a run to the score, and make it a tie game? And if you were the team that lost by one run, wouldn't you absolutely expect to have your run added, since retroactive run-scoring would theoretically be the umpiring standard?

There are a billion scenarios like this, and probably a billion more that we haven't imagined, all created by the precedent of retroactive run scoring. To let this happen would open up a Pandora's box.

The Powers That Be may well decide to turn down the protest based on the three-run differential, but think about the precedent that would set. In all future protests, would the first consideration be the final score -- or the correct administration of the game's rules?

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I guess the USA Today had a reporter in the Browns war room on Saturday. Interesting on how everything went down. Who knows if Brady is the second coming, but more importantly will a "Brady Bunch" form to rival the "Braylon Bunch"

http://www.usatoday.com/sports/football/nfl/browns/2007-04-29-war-room-cover_N.htm

Only 60 or 65 more spots and he'll earn his money...

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As the Sports Guy posts in part one of his MVP countdown, Larry Hughes ranks #73 (down from #72 when Bill went to press) among shooting guards in John Hollinger's PER ratings on ESPN.com. #73. Ummm, wow.

297. Larry Hughes
Say what you want about John Hollinger's PER ratings, but it's never good when you're paying max money to someone who ranks 72nd on the 2-guard list. I've already preordered Brian Windhorst's book on Amazon.com -- "Why We Lost LeBron: Seven Long Years of Catastrophic Front Office Failure in Cleveland" -- even though the book can't officially be released until LeBron joins the 2010 Knicks. Get to work, Windhorst. Might as well start early.

A few thoughts about Israel, Part Two

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--During our seven days on the ground, my group had perhaps three or four hours of daytime freedom. This was a point of contention among several of my colleagues. I was not surprised that we were over programmed. Sponsors of these types of missions pack as much as they can into the allotted time, and free time be damned.

There were a few days that became redundant to the point of coma. There are about 160 programs under the auspices of MASA. We saw maybe 20. We’d go from one student group to the next…each session consisting of listening to program directors speak, then breaking off into one-on-one interviews, then busing to the next stop where the process would begin anew. Jacob, a stringer for the Jewish Telegraphic Association, probably put it best. During one stop (I think it was Be’er Sheva), a student asked him how many MASA programs our group had seen.

“Every fuckin’ one,” Jacob replied.

--It’s true that I felt safe when I arrived in Israel, and I would recommend anyone to make the trip. But you have to be smart about where you go. A guy named Ted, from Cincinnati, went off by himself one day to visit the Western Wall in J-lem. To get to the Wall you have to travel through a dense, maze-like warren of Jewish and Arab neighborhoods. Ted soon got lost and found himself in the wrong part of town. The natives were not happy to see a big, “Jewish-looking” guy wearing a yarmulke skulking through their streets. According to Ted’s account, a group of Arab kids stoned him, even as he held up a two-fingered “peace” sign. The kids chased the heavily sweating Ted for 10 minutes until he finally made his escape.

--Most Israeli teenagers join the army following their primary schooling. Our guide Guy was in the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces) for eight years. He has spent his last four years as a tour guide. During our interminable bus rides, Guy would regale us with facts and figures about our surroundings, regional history, and politics, a favorite topic among Israelis. He didn’t seem to care that half his audience was sleeping, and the other half was chatting with their seatmates or staring blankly out the window.

Guy’s an interesting…guy. He was part of the infamous 2002 operation into the Palestinian territories following a terrorist bombing at Park Hotel in Netanya. (The attack killed over 20 people.) The liberal press lambasted Israel for demolishing civilian homes, which, according to Guy, had been turned into bomb-making factories.

He also had a near miss with a suicide bomber a couple of years ago. Guy happened to miss a bus to work one day and took the next bus instead. Turns out a bomber entered his usual bus, which was mostly empty, and blew himself up. The driver was killed.

Guy doesn’t watch TV; in fact he doesn’t own a television. For entertainment he reads history books, or travels with his girlfriend. (Israelis are great travelers. After army service, which lasts about three years, most Israelis scatter to the four winds. Many will settle down for a year somewhere in Europe or Asia. There are a great many Israelis in Thailand, as is my understanding)

By Guy’s own admission, he’s somewhat of a “square.” I can’t comment on that, but he is the wussiest drinker I’ve ever met. Honestly, Guy makes me look like Belushi in “Animal House.” I saw Guy get drunk off half a beer. I had to finish it for him. What does that tell you?