3
2012
Asterisk-y Business
An article by 
Take a look at the headline above. This was the back page of Saturday’s edition of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. See anything intersting? See it twice?
Apparently, the writers and/or editorial staff of the newspaper don’t think Johan Santana earned his no-hitter, the first thrown by a Met in 8,020 regular season games. They claim the blown call by third base umpire Adrian Johnson on Carlos Beltran’s screaming liner caused Santana to pitch a tainted no-hitter against their hometown team, hence the asterisks on their headline.
Yes, it’s true that Beltran’s ball kicked up chalk when it grazed the third base line. But note what I said in the last sentence. It grazed the line. It probably touched two millimeters of the third base foul line. At around 100 MPH. Just as a home plate umpire could miss seeing a ball thrown at triple digit velocity cross the inner two millimeters of home plate, Adrian Johnson could do the same on the ball hit by Beltran. It wasn’t a blatant error. It was the human eye not being able to see a blazing liner touch a small piece of real estate. It happens.
Who knows? Maybe the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had plenty of asterisks left over from 1997-2001. You know, the ones they never used for Mark McGwire when he was blasting 220 HR over his 4½ year tenure in St. Louis with his steroid-filled biceps.
It’s okay. We understand why St. Louis would be bitter at a bad call by an umpire. After all, it was first base umpire Don Denkinger who blew a call at first base in Game 6 of the 1985 World Series that allowed the Kansas City Royals to rally for a victory, one that was followed by a Game 7 shellacking of St. Louis to give the Royals their only championship.
But please, for the love of Joaquin Andujar, don’t take away from Santana’s performance on Friday night by placing an asterisk next to NO-HITTER. Especially when the Cardinals have 18 pennants, 11 World Series titles and more playoff appearances since Y2K (eight) than the Mets have had in their entire existence (seven).
Let us have our fun without crashing our party, St. Louis. I mean, you can already lay claim to everything, right? Well, everything except a hit against Johan Santana on June 1, 2012.
Get over it, Cardinals fans. We deserve this one. And none of your leftover asterisks from a dozen years ago will ever be able to take away from our moment of history.
About the Author: Ed Leyro
Ed Leyro was hatched in the Bronx, but spent most of his youth in Queens at Shea Stadium. Apparently, all that time spent at Mets games paid off as Ed met his wife (The Coop) for the first time at Citi Field during its inaugural season. Guess the 2009 season was good for something after all. In addition to his work at Mets Merized Online, Ed also owns, operates and is head janitor at Studious Metsimus, where he shares blogging duties with Joey Beartran. For those not in the know, Joey is a teddy bear dressed in a Mets hoodie. Clearly, Studious Metsimus is not your typical Mets blog.
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NL East Standings
| Team | W | L | Pct. | GB |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Braves | 22 | 18 | .550 | - |
| Nationals | 22 | 19 | .537 | 0.5 |
| Phillies | 19 | 22 | .463 | 3.5 |
| Mets | 15 | 23 | .395 | 6.0 |
| Marlins | 11 | 30 | .268 | 11.5 |
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Please. What was their headline after Game 3 of the 2011 World Series after Ron Kulpa blew the double play call on a Holliday groundball in the 4th which then lead to their rally?
To that, I say whatever. Brush it off, Ed. They’ve always have & always will be big babies. Don’t be surprised if they pull a Denkinger on Adrian Johnson if you know what I mean.
Waaaaah Waaaaah. Remember the recent blown call at first base on the perfect game? Life happens. So many calls have gone against the Mets thru the years. Heck, I still have an article from the 1970s by Dick Young in the NY Daily News “Are Umps Spitting On Mets?” There are no replays in baseball for those calls, there is no crying in baseball (unless Oliver Perez is pitching) — and what does it matter to them? St. Louis lost the game. THAT’S what matters.
If there is ever a perfectly called game they should put an asterisk on it. 90 to 95% right seems
to be about right as an accepted standard.
baseball has rules. the ump makes a call, it stands. no asterisks. a call is a call.
Well, was it a fair ball or a foul ball? Did the umpire on that night, on that play get it wrong or right? We’re not talking about what happened ten years ago, last year or the night before. We’re talking that play. Yeah for the Mets and Santana. But it was a fair ball and the ump missed the call. Simply because the Post-Dispatch editor decided to note that doesn’t characterize the team’s or the town’s opinion. I’m sure they’re more concerned about their offense as a whole right now rather than that one missed call. Hey, from a personal standpoint, the players are probably glad it was a missed call, too, given as it turned out — they’re a part of history, too. Wasn’t like it was a 2-1 game and that call cost them the game.
Sore Loser Turds!
Way to go, EL!
How fitting the paper would be Bush League.
When the last out in the 9th inning is recorded, the game is official. End of story. No further discussion is needed.
Well you can discuss it all you want it’s just not going to change a damn thing and you look like a whinny ass when you do it.
Let’s just put an * next to every game played as there is always a blown call, even if it’s just balls and strikes. That’s the way the game is currently played, period.
Let’s face it: No team wants to be on the losing end of a no hitter pitched against them.
Certainly not the WS Champs St. Louis Cardinals.
Detailing the blown call in the article would have been correct. Having that the focus in the title of the article? Whiny……
My only comment on asterisk is Thats baseball , First words out of Yankee fans mouth were it’s tainted, well obviously they don’t remember Jeffery Maier or Joe Mauer or Tino Martinez being struck out on the pitch before grand slam. Don’t let it bother you Met fans it was a great night the only thing better would have been if it was Molina who struck out.
The Eric Gregg game where he called anything in the park a strike, Gallarragas almost perfect game blown call has been the most obvious lately. Blown calls are part of the game, for better or worse. Every team has been on both sides, as long as a human is making split second calls.
http://aol.sportingnews.com/mlb/story/2012-06-03/johan-santana-no-hitter-st-louis-newspaper-refuses-to-recognize-it
New York media, never ones to let a barb like that go to waste, took the P-D’s bait. The New York Daily News fired off this zinger:
“Apparently, the Post-Dispatch couldn’t locate the asterisk key while Mark McGwire was swatting 220 steroid-aided home runs while a member of the Cardinals and setting bogus records in St. Louis.”
Asterisk are so stupid to start with. Did they or did they not achieve the feat in the record book? Where the hell do they get off placing one on anyone’s? Even the steroid debate. How many of today’s reporters didn’t know those guys were juicing but because of it were able to further their own careers? How many made cutthroat decisions of their own to get ahead of the next guy? Should we put an asterisk beside of each of their columns as well?
Truth of the matter is you could pretty much put an asterisk on anything in the record books…
Does anyone think Babe Ruth would have all the HRs he hit if he played in CitiField all his career and had to face guys who throw in the high 90′s everyday?
I know the history of baseball is part of the allure of the game but lets be clear records that are broken today have as much to do with knowledge of the body and conditioning than it says anything about a current day player compared to a guy who has been in the record books for 60 years!
It’s a nice thing for Fans to follow, and it’s Nice for a player to know his name will be mentioned long after he is retired when some new kid surpasses him on the list…
But as far as comparing the two players on the list and saying who is better it’s pretty much worthless!
Somewhere recently I saw the average percent of blown ball/strikes for each game, as done by analysis after. I can’t remember what the number was right now. Suffice it say it was > 0. So……
Should we put asterisks next to every single game b/c of the human element and apparent ‘errors’? Obviously the answer would be no. Until or when we’ve got robot umps, the human element will always be a part of the game. Period.
Truth is I bet you could put an asterisk after EVERY game if you looked hard enough…certainly every No Hitter and Perfect game won and lost!
We really shouldn’t bother to pay these stories any attention!
We are just perpetuating the discussion, the game is over it’s been recorded and no matter what anyone decides it’s still going to be a ho hitter!
On a related note I found it funny that the second the game was over they collected all of Thole’s catching gear to authenticate it as being used in the no hitter.
But he had just got a new Hockey style mask that day and didn’t have another one so they got averything but his mask! LOL
Dang, if Thole is going to wear that hockey type mask to protect his brain, the least they can do is make sure he’s got 2 at all times. Whoever makes those things would probably ‘donate’ it. They’d love the publicity.
I know that pitching rubber they dug up is probably headed to the HOF.
Yeah it was probably just a matter of him trying it out for awhile to see if he liked it and it never occurred to them that the one he was wearing would become a collectors item! LOL
I’m sure if he is comfortable with the model he has they will get him a spare.
People are always complaining about something. Yes, it surely was a blown call but it didn’t change the outcome of the game as far as who won. All it did was change a personal accomplishment of a player. Everyone would be pissed if games dragged on because of too many replay time outs so the best thing to do is to see that no one umpire is making too many mistakes. Other than calling balls and strikes, the umpires usually get it right! The home plate umpire will always be questioned unless there is a standardization of the strike zone.
In the meantime….if the asterisk was removed for the 61 homers for Roger Maris who broke the most sacred of records…..then it has no place here either!
Truth of the matter is if the Ump called that ball fair and the rest of the game went the way it did (unlikely Santana would have been lifted due to pitch count), We would be the ones complaining about the call being bad and costing Santana the No No…
It’s really a pointless discussion!