The Judge Interference Play

[BruisedCrew]

This video has a very thorough explanation of why Judge should have been called for interference, resulting in a DP. It also addresses why the explanation from Judge and Yankees fans that “he always slides this way” doesn’t remove the interference. 

Some of the items I saw about this cited a rule relating to interfering with a fielder on a batted ball that does not apply to this. 

This play made us so mad that we left the game after the Yankees turned their extra out into a game clinching barrage of runs. We couldn’t take listening to the whooping Yankees fans around us when they had been gifted their big inning. 
 

[kestrel79]

If Judge steals 2nd base, is he a head first slider? Or is he like Braun and does a feet first slide when stealing? No reason for him to have that giant hand pad on then either. Let's see him try that without one.

It's all good, this is just a World Series preview and we will beat them then :)

[Kripes - Brewers]

It sure started the beatdown - 2nd one in as many days. That's a jolt to team pride. It'll be interesting to see how they rebound, but those Yankees can hit the baseball...

[Playing Catch]

1 hour ago, kestrel79 said:

If Judge steals 2nd base, is he a head first slider? Or is he like Braun and does a feet first slide when stealing? No reason for him to have that giant hand pad on then either. Let's see him try that without one.

It's all good, this is just a World Series preview and we will beat them then :)

Someone in the game-thread surmised that he wears the mitt for diving back to first, which makes sense to me. Doesn't change the fact that he's been deliberately interfering with DPs for a long time.

[MrTPlush]

1 hour ago, kestrel79 said:

If Judge steals 2nd base, is he a head first slider? Or is he like Braun and does a feet first slide when stealing? No reason for him to have that giant hand pad on then either. Let's see him try that without one.

It's all good, this is just a World Series preview and we will beat them then :)

If you watch the video, he does do it without the pad too. 

But thus, no one with any sliver of knowledge about baseball needs a detailed explanation of why it isn't a legal slide. He slides like that every time with the intention of interfering. Consistently cheating does not make it not cheating. Not that Brewers fans really have much room to talk after Rhys Hoskin's douche bag slide earlier in the year. 

[Thurston Fluff]

43 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

If you watch the video, he does do it without the pad too. 

But thus, no one with any sliver of knowledge about baseball needs a detailed explanation of why it isn't a legal slide. He slides like that every time with the intention of interfering. Consistently cheating does not make it not cheating. Not that Brewers fans really have much room to talk after Rhys Hoskin's douche bag slide earlier in the year. 

Assuming you're talking about the one against the Mets Hoskin's slide was legal.

[Outlander]

Close Call Sports is great at explaining rules and if the correct call was made. Even if you have been following baseball for a long time they give a solid breakdown of why the Judge slide is illegal.

[jay87shot]

For me just his hand extending straight up makes it illegal. He was 100% out, no one has every accidentally slid with there hand up in the way of a throw on accident. 

It isn't a natural slide, was this review able? I didn't watch the game and was listening at that point.

[JosephC]

I don't think Judge throws his arm up with the intention of interfering.  He's been around for way too long, and played in much more significant games, to have this be the first time he's knocked down a throw.  If he's looking to interfere with throws, he's not going to pick an early season game with Milwaukee in his ninth season to see if he can get away with it.  I think he intentionally raises his arm for the purpose of distracting the middle infielder and trying to get him to make a bad throw.  For anyone claiming that this is just his natural way of sliding, the following is proof that it is not.

 

 

So early in this video it appears like it's perfectly logical to claim that his arm just goes up "naturally" when he slides.  First 4 slides in this the left arm goes up in a pretty consistent manner.  But look at the fifth slide, with that slide he throws both arms up,  How is that a normal slide?  Then look at the seventh slide, with that one the left arm stays down and the right arm goes up.  Look at the position of the middle infielder on those two slides.  Clearly on those two he is purposely throwing his arm up in an attempt to distract the fielder.

When Judge knocked that ball down I would bet just about anything that he was mad at himself because he knew that he was going to be called for interference.  He was probably the most surprised person in the stadium when the umpires concluded that it was not interference.  It was a complete failure by the umpires.

[MrTPlush]

2 hours ago, Thurston Fluff said:

Assuming you're talking about the one against the Mets Hoskin's slide was legal.

I mean we could argue whether the slide was legal or not until the cows come home, it is kind of a judgement call. The only reason it was deemed legal is because Rhys Hoskins stayed on the base...but one of the main reasons for that is because he used the fielder as a backstop. I am guessing the umpires would have been well within their right to say Hoskins was intentionally trying to interfere with the infielder making the play with no real attempt to take 2nd base. The infielder stopping you to keep you on the base probably doesn't qualify it as a real attempt to take the base. 

Regardless, both are pretty douche moves. Defending the Hoskins occurrence and calling Judge out is being pretty bias as a Brewers fan/coach/player. 

[Jim French Stepstool]

3 hours ago, jay87shot said:

 

It isn't a natural slide, was this review able? 

It is not.

Unrelated, but I'd like to know how much extra length you get wearing a tennis racquet cover on your hand when sliding into a base. Three inches? Five?

[BruisedCrew]

1 hour ago, MrTPlush said:

I mean we could argue whether the slide was legal or not until the cows come home, it is kind of a judgement call. The only reason it was deemed legal is because Rhys Hoskins stayed on the base...but one of the main reasons for that is because he used the fielder as a backstop. I am guessing the umpires would have been well within their right to say Hoskins was intentionally trying to interfere with the infielder making the play with no real attempt to take 2nd base. The infielder stopping you to keep you on the base probably doesn't qualify it as a real attempt to take the base. 

Regardless, both are pretty douche moves. Defending the Hoskins occurrence and calling Judge out is being pretty bias as a Brewers fan/coach/player. 

What you’re doing here is mixing up two different rules. 

The question on the Hoskins play was whether the slide was within the rules’ definition of a legal slide. That is reviewable and the review confirmed that the slide met the definition. 

The issue on the play yesterday was whether Judge interfered with a thrown ball after he was retired as a runner. For whatever reason interference is not reviewable but the crew chief confirmed after the game that, after seeing the video, interference should have been called. 

Even if both moves are douchey, one was within the rules and the other resulted in interference. 

Of course the reason Brewers fans were so upset about this play is that it led directly to the Yankees blowing open a tied game. If Uribe hadn’t blown up right after that the play would have become a minor footnote. 

[wiguy94]

7 hours ago, Playing Catch said:

Someone in the game-thread surmised that he wears the mitt for diving back to first, which makes sense to me. Doesn't change the fact that he's been deliberately interfering with DPs for a long time.

That wouldn't make sense. You don't dive back into a base with your left hand. You do it with your right hand because you want to be towards the OF side of first base not the homepate side of first base.

[wiguy94]

5 hours ago, JosephC said:

I don't think Judge throws his arm up with the intention of interfering.  He's been around for way too long, and played in much more significant games, to have this be the first time he's knocked down a throw.  If he's looking to interfere with throws, he's not going to pick an early season game with Milwaukee in his ninth season to see if he can get away with it.  I think he intentionally raises his arm for the purpose of distracting the middle infielder and trying to get him to make a bad throw.  For anyone claiming that this is just his natural way of sliding, the following is proof that it is not.

 

 

So early in this video it appears like it's perfectly logical to claim that his arm just goes up "naturally" when he slides.  First 4 slides in this the left arm goes up in a pretty consistent manner.  But look at the fifth slide, with that slide he throws both arms up,  How is that a normal slide?  Then look at the seventh slide, with that one the left arm stays down and the right arm goes up.  Look at the position of the middle infielder on those two slides.  Clearly on those two he is purposely throwing his arm up in an attempt to distract the fielder.

When Judge knocked that ball down I would bet just about anything that he was mad at himself because he knew that he was going to be called for interference.  He was probably the most surprised person in the stadium when the umpires concluded that it was not interference.  It was a complete failure by the umpires.

Judge absolutely slides into 2B with his hand straight up to distract the 2B. Here's video of him sliding feet first into 2B while legging out doubles. Notice the left arm stays up, but he doesn't fully extend the hand in the air like he did yesterday and in all the other instances of a double play ball.

 

[BruisedCrew]

I’d like to see some video of how Judge slides into second base, or maybe even third base or home, when there is no double play in order and he’s just trying to get to the base.

That might give us an idea of whether throwing his hand up like that is part of his natural sliding motion, or if it is an attempt to distract the throw for a double play.

[wiguy94]

2 minutes ago, BruisedCrew said:

I’d like to see some video of how Judge slides into second base, or maybe even third base or home, when there is no double play in order and he’s just trying to get to the base.

That might give us an idea of whether throwing his hand up like that is part of his natural sliding motion, or if it is an attempt to distract the throw for a double play.

Look at my comment right above yours. 3 times Judge sliding into 2B legging out a double. All 3 times he raises his arm, but doesn't fully extend the hand up in the air. Raising his left arm seems to be part of his natural slide, but the full hand extension in the air seems to be entirely to distract the turn at 2B.

[BruisedCrew]

27 minutes ago, wiguy94 said:

Look at my comment right above yours. 3 times Judge sliding into 2B legging out a double. All 3 times he raises his arm, but doesn't fully extend the hand up in the air. Raising his left arm seems to be part of his natural slide, but the full hand extension in the air seems to be entirely to distract the turn at 2B.

Thanks, I didn’t notice that. 

Those slides are noticeably different, especially the last one where he briefly raises and lowers his arm. 

My opinion /interpretation is that judge intentionally extends and keeps his arm up on DP balls in an attempt to distract the fielder or get him to try to throw the ball around his arm. He probably feels that if he is already out and the double play will almost certainly be completed, he has nothing to lose . He was probably laughing privately that he got away with that.

[long ball]

1 hour ago, wiguy94 said:

Judge absolutely slides into 2B with his hand straight up to distract the 2B. Here's video of him sliding feet first into 2B while legging out doubles. Notice the left arm stays up, but he doesn't fully extend the hand in the air like he did yesterday and in all the other instances of a double play ball.

 

thank you. this is the pertinent video to show to prove that the slide yesterday was not his natural sliding motion. not the 2 other videos posted in this thread.

 

ultimately the umps admitted they blew the call. it happens. however that inning cascaded on uribe between the ump telling him he blew the call on the judge walk to begin with, the missed call on the interference, and then getting squeezed on strike 3. he recorded 5 outs (judge twice) and only got credited for 2. it sucks, move onto the next one, 

[KeithStone53151]

It honestly doesn't matter if it's "how he slides". It's interference, very clear. If this is deemed a correct call by the league, we should have guys run to second base with a giant umbrella attached to their arm. Nobody will ever turn a double play on us again...

[Brock Beauchamp]

8 hours ago, KeithStone53151 said:

It honestly doesn't matter if it's "how he slides". It's interference, very clear. If this is deemed a correct call by the league, we should have guys run to second base with a giant umbrella attached to their arm. Nobody will ever turn a double play on us again...

AND BRICE TURANG STEALS HIS RECORD 269TH BASE OF THE SEASON