Some Possible Explanations for Tim Welke’s Blown Call

The Human Element is alive and well in baseball. In case we may have started to doubt this, baseball fans everywhere were given a robust example yesterday, when Tim Welke made what we can safely term “The Worst Call of the Year.” Jerry Hairston (the more handsome of the Hairstons, if you ask me) hit the baseball on the ground to third base. The third baseman fielded said ball. The third baseman threw the ball to first base, where Todd Helton took three or four steps off the bag, and caught the ball with his left foot firmly entrenched in an island of dirt. Umpire Tim Welke signaled that the runner was out. He was very wrong to do that. The baseballing internet blew up, and here we are.

This very well could be beating the proverbial dead horse, but I still think it’s important. Baseball needs expanded use of replay, and the only way baseball is going to get expanded use of replay is if the paying customer starts to demand it. The paying customer is only going to start to demand it if terrible calls like this one are called out and discussed on television and the internet and everywhere in-between. This is my humble contribution towards that cause. Please forgive the repetition. I have no doubt that Tim Welke is a swell guy and he probably doesn’t deserve this very loud and public admonishment for what was a very human and understandable mistake—but there’s no reason that this swell guy shouldn’t have every tool at his disposal to make the correct call and avoid this entire mess altogether. As current, he does not.

But let’s not dwell on such depressing matters of human frailty and failure. Let’s instead make smart-ass jokes on the internet! In that spirit, I’d like to present to you a few possible explanations as to why Tim Welke may have blown the aforementioned call:

• Bug in his eye, man.
• A lapse in his imperfect human perception
• Jerry Hairston took his mother, Dorothy Welke, out for a nice seafood dinner and never called her again.
• He really, really wanted to catch a few more Matt Kemp at-bats. That guy is on fire right now!
• Tim Welke wanted to give manager Jim Tracy ample opportunity to intentionally walk the tying run in the ninth inning and have the sweet wheels of justice score that same tying run after a Dee Gordon double.
• Just really out of position to make an accurate and informed ruling on the play.
• He was trying to find Magic Johnson in the stands.
• Some inexplicable and cosmic force that allows for innocent infallibility.
• Welke wants expanded instant replay but Bud Selig won’t return his calls.
• He was trying to help inspire a new Emo Juan Uribe entry.

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Kyle writes baseball nonsense at The Trance of Waiting. You can follow him on Twitter @AgainstKyle.