Friday, October 9, 2009

Holliday Has a Legit Point, Even If I Don't Agree


Cardinals' left fielder Matt Holliday made a very costly error in the 9th inning that helped give the Dodgers a 2-0 lead in their best-of-five series. After the game, starting pitcher Adam Wainwright said that it wasn't fair that Dodger fans are allowed to have a "white out" of sorts where they were wearing white shirts and waving white towels.

While I'm not a true believer, I do see the reasoning behind it. Hitters get to have a dark spot behind the pitcher in order to see the ball -- and he's only 66 feet away. I can see a line drive getting caught behind a sea of white shirts and towels and complaining that it's not fair for a fielder to have to deal with.


The problem I have in this is that this is just the way it is. I mean, what can baseball do? Eliminate all white objects from the stadium? If the entire stadium wore black shirts except the one guy wearing a white shirt, there still is a chance that the ball would get lost.

Lost. Balls get lost all the time. They get lost in the lights all of the time. Maybe we shouldn't schedule any night games because that's not fair. But wait! We can't have them during the day either because the ball tends to get lost in the sun quite a bit. Maybe we should just have the games in domed stadiums. But wait! Pop ups are tough to deal with against the backdrop of a white roof (just ask any baseball player who has played at the Metrodome).


It's a fact of baseball life. Holliday has a complaint but there really is nothing he or the league could do about it. They won't go back and replay this game no matter what the whining is about. St. Louis just has to deal with this and move on.

1 comment:

Greekgeek said...

Matt Holliday said he lost the ball in the lights.

Wainwright was trying to shield him by blaming the rally towels (which, in fact, were blue on one side, but looked white, just as the red towels looked white in the St. Louis games).

Also, the towels weren't waving in that play until AFTER he went down, as the fans were pretty discouraged.

Maybe towels should be banned, but the white shirts worn by a lot of fans aren't going to help either, and if Holliday really lost it in the lights like he said he did -- well, can't get rid of those!