It always angers me that the major sports leagues continue to employ incompetent officials, but it simply disgusts me that they employ officials that purposely make calls that they know are bogus.
This is one such call.
The San Antonio Spurs were playing the Dallas Mavericks in a late-season game. Tim Duncan had been given a Technical for coplaining about the call. Just over a minute later, he was sitting on the bench. After a play ended on San Antonio’s side of the floor, Tim was seen laughing on the bench. Replays show that he never uttered a word, yet official Joey Crawford apparently decided it was worthy of another technical foul, resulting in an ejection from the game.
After the game, Duncan recounted his conversation with Crawford after he was called for his second technical foul. “He looked at me and said, ‘Do you want to fight? Do you want to fight? If he wants to fight, we can fight. I don’t have any problem with him, but we can do it if he wants to. I have no reason why in the middle of a game he would yell at me, ‘Do you want to fight?”‘
Look at the video below, and see for yourself. The whole thing happens in real time around the 20 second mark, and the replay which shows Duncan throughout the entire play is at the 1:30 mark. He doesn’t say a word or do anything at all that would warrant a technical foul.
In Game Six of the 1998 NBA Finals, Michael Jordan led a comeback in the final minute that won the game and the championship for Chicago. There were two big incorrect calls involving shot clock violations during the game that would have completely changed the game, causing a five point swing in Utah’s favor.
The first is the most blatant, where the ref takes away a 3-pointer from the Jazz that was obviously shot before the buzzer. The second is closer, but still incorrect. A Bulls player gets a shot off right after the clock expires and makes it. The refs call no violation. Replay shows it was clearly the wrong call.
This commentary on this video is in Spanish, but the evidence is all there.
This is something that drives me crazy about basketball. By rule, the referee isn’t supposed to take the shot clock into account when determining if a 10-second violation has been made. The backcourt ref’s hand-counting is the only ‘clock’ that applies. It’s hard to believe that a ref can keep time better in his head than an actual shot clock can. That’s just stupid.
Why not call a 10-second violation the instant the clock hits 25? That would make so much more sense than they way it’s currently done.
Here’s a video of the officials blowing a 10-second violation in a Texas vs. Oklahoma basketball game in Norman, Oklahoma on 2/24/2007. Sooners coach Jeff Capel couldn’t believe there was no violation called, and then when his player was called for a foul instead of a Texas backcourt violation, he went nuts and got called for a Technical foul. A 10-second call would have completely changed the game. Instead, Texas won 68-58.
In this video, Detroit’s Jones has the ball, and stops outside the 3-point line. A ref is running down the court to catch up with the action, and doesn’t stop in time, colliding with Jones. To cover his mistake, he calls a foul on the defender Billups, who was next to the Jones at the time.
The announcers don’t even mention the obvious bad call. They show the replay, and act as if nothing happened. I suppose they want to keep their network’s contract with the NBA. Can’t rag on the refs too much or David Stern will hunt you down.
White Sox catcher A.J. Pierzynski swings at strike three. Umpire Doug Eddings signals strike three, and then a fist pump. Watch any baseball game, anywhere, ever, and the fist pump mean “Out”. Pierzynski then runs to first, thinking that perhaps the ball hit the ground. Eddings lets him go to first, and calls him safe, saying that he never actually called the runner out, and that the ball had indeed hit the ground.
Replays are inconclusive as to whether or not the ball hit the ground, but that is irrelevant here. Even if the ball had clearly hit the ground, the second Eddings signaled an out, the game was over.
Watch the video below that I found at FireDougEddings.com. There is no way any reasonable person could assume that his actions meant anything but strike and out. Clearly, when Pierzynski started running, Eddings assumed he must have missed something. When he then conferenced with the other umpires, they told him the ball may have hit the dirt, and he made the call then.
Watch the video, and tell me what you think.
FireDougEddings.com has an interesting stat which they use as evidence to indicate that he hates the Angels. From 199 to 2004, he umpired 15 games at home plate for Angel’s games of which they won five, a 33% record. During that span, their overall record was 51%. The sample size is far too small to make any sense of the data, but it’s interesting none the less.
This is pretty bad. Clemson vs. Maryland in Death Valley on November 4th, 2006. First, an obvious safety was correctly called a safety by the officials on the field, and then was mysteriously overturned by the booth official upon review.
Watch the video below, and see for yourself. There is no possible way that the player had full possession of the ball before it touched the goal line. It’s not even close!
So now Clemson has the ball at their own 1/2-yard line. Now they run the ball, and the runner is clearly tackled for another safety. Not in Death Valley, with these referees.
Somehow, the refs determined once again that the player was not tackled for a safety, but somehow made it out of the endzone, despite all evidence to the contrary.
If Maryland hadn’t eventually won the game 13-12 on a last-minute field goal, this may have ended up as a much bigger issue for this officiating crew.
Alright, this is probably the worst instance of terrible instant replay officiating that has ever existed.
First, Oregon touches the ball before 10 yards, which automatically results in Oklahoma’s ball at the spot.
Second, The ball clearly ends up in an Oklahoma player’s hands. He’s not even down. He could have run it in for a touchdown if he wanted to, but the refs inexplicably blew the play dead without the ball being in anyone’s possession.
Well that’s why we have instant replay. Surely, the replay official will see all of these obvious indicators that clearly point to Oklahoma being awarded possession. Nope.
Somehow, the replay official determined that it should be Oregon’s ball, despite the fact that no Oregon player ever actually had possession of the ball at any time during the play.
Huh?
It should also be noted that Pac-10 teams require that their own officials work all non-conference home games, despite the fact that most conferences have the exact opposite policy. If one team gets to play at home, the other conference provides the officials, just so everything is fair. Not the Pac-10, which after watching this, makes you wonder if there’s a reason they insist on this unusual policy.
I just hope that other conferences take note, and start refusing to play away games (or any games) against Pac-10 teams.
As much as I hate bad officiating, I do realize how difficult it can be to make the right call when the play is going at lightning speed. That’s why I think instant replay is so great…. or at least it would be if the instant replay officials were competent.
In this replay, Louisville picks up a bouncing punt, turns and starts running cross-field, when he gets hit by a Connecticut player. The ball comes loose, Terry Baltimore picks it up and runs it in for a touchdown….. or so it would seem.
With the full benefit of replay, the official somehow determines that the Louisville player did not in fact ever have possession of the ball. Huh? Then what was he holding when he took those four steps across the field?
It’s amazing to me that these officials don’t have to answer for such obvious bad calls made when they have a slow motion replay and several angles to work with. Ridiculous!
This is yet another example of how NBA stars are given huge amounts of preferential treatment. Wade spins around, loses his balance, and falls over. Not wanting Wade to embarass himself, the refs bail him out by calling a foul on the other team.
How many times does his pivot foot change? Sadly, this is yet another example of how teams like Duke don’t get called for infractions that other teams do.
There’s no way that any other player gets away with this.