[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

From Joe Poz's blog

And that’s why the one complaint I’ve heard that stands above all the others is that the umpires should “Let the players decide.” The thinking is that umpires and officials should not interfere with the natural course of play. You hear this all the time in sports, all sports. It comes up whenever a foul is called in the final seconds of a basketball game, whenever a referee calls a penalty in a hockey overtime, whenever an official calls a holding penalty or something like it on the critical play in the final seconds. The whole “let the players decide” line of thought seem pretty suspect most of the time.


But in this case, it’s downright ridiculous. You will never see a game where the manager and players DECIDED more than this one. When Farrell decided to hit his pitcher, when he decided to leave Napoli on the bench to rot, when he decided to pitch to Jay, when Salty decided to throw to third, when Middlebrooks decided not to come off the bag and throw his body Secret Service style to stop it, the Red Sox decided to lose. And they did.

In a nutshell.