Thursday, May 27, 2010

Ted Lilly Cheats; Casey Blake Notices; Rob Neyer Investigates; John Hirschbeck Yawns

The Beard's eagle eyes caught the Cubs' Ted Lilly balking all over the place today, but nothing was done. And it was up to Rob "MacGyver" Neyer to piece this mystery together, using only tweets, the LA television broadcast, a rubber band, chewing gum, and a couple of highway emergency flares:

First, this from GreenLantern411: "pretty sure CJ is talking about lilly's left foot being nowhere near the rubber ... was pretty blatant"

And a few moments later, this from (Rangers fan) jcooksey04: "Lilly's foot was about 6 inches from the rubber in his last start vs the Rangers. Umps never saw it."

Thus armed, I went back and watched the bottom of the sixth inning again, but this time the Dodger broadcast with Steve Lyons and Eric Collins.

The fun begins with two outs and Blake on first base. Reed Johnson fouls off one pitch, then another. Blake, leading off, is one of the two people in Chicago with the best look at whatever Lilly's doing (first baseman Derrek Lee is the other). Before throwing his third pitch, Lilly steps off the mound. We don't know why. A moment later, he steps off again and finally we see Blake standing on first base, complaining to John Hirschbeck about something.

Lyons says, "I think Casey Blake maybe thought he saw a balk, and he's over there chipping at the first-base umpire about, why aren't we calling it?"

Nice sleuthing, Rob! And hat tip to Jon Weisman for the link.

3 comments:

Steve Sax said...

I wonder why Hal Jordan needs the phone number for information.

or is that guy the place for information on Hal Jordan? And Kyle Rayner?

Fred's Brim said...

Neyer listened to the "Dodgers broadcast with Steve Lyons and Eric Collins" and soon after, the Collins curse kicked in and Neyer had his wallet stolen and found out his wife was cheating on him

Steve Sax said...

And someone had keyed his car