About The Brandon Inge HBP Thing

So lets replay this, comment and move on.

In the top of the 12th inning of the Minnesota Twins-Detroit Tiger tiebreaker game, Minnesota's Bobby Keppel ran a ball in on Detroit's Brandon Inge. It appeared Inge's jersey was grazed, which according to MLB rules, if any part of your uniform is hit, you are awarded first base.

Usually a brush wouldn't be a big deal in a major league game which warrants commentary. But this was game 163 with the winner going to the playoffs. And it was the top of the 12th inning. And the bases were loaded.

Home plate umpire Randy Marsh said he did not see any contact.

The video replay is fairly conclusive and it appears Inge's jersey and the baseball made contact with each other. It was an incredibly difficult call to make. A ball brushing a jersey doesn't a definitive sound. Inge wasn't hit in the foot or wrist. He didn't drop in pain. Inge quickly realized what happened and tried going to first, but Marsh made him return to the batter's box.

Let's see what the parties involved have to say:

Inge: “I want a hit as much as the next guy, but when it’s that important, it hit my shirt,” Inge said of the first pitch he took from Keppel, thrown with the bases loaded and one out in the 12th inning. “I’m not going to lie.”

“It hit my shirt, period,” Inge said. “I don’t lie about things like that. I’m not going to try to weasel my way on base.”

Leyland: "I asked Randy right away if he could ask the second-base umpire, and he said no, definitely not. That's his call. I understand that. That's hard to put that on a second-base umpire to make that call.

"I don't know if the second-base umpire saw it or not. But there was no doubt in [Marsh's] mind, and the replay kind of confirms that it did hit him.

Marsh has a difference of opinion:

“I did not have the ball hitting him,” Marsh told a pool reporter. “We looked at replays, too. And the replays that we’ve looked at, to be honest with you, were inconclusive. I did not see a replay that showed that it hit him.”

What? You didn't see it hit him? Are you fucking serious man?

Being a ref sucks. It blows. The players hate you. The coaches hate you. The fans hate you. If you do an exemplary job it barely gets a mention. If you miss a call, you're burned in effigy. Refs are in an unenviable position and I have a lot of respect for the profession. Baseball players strike out, managers muff (I've wanted to use the word muff for a while although it isn't the best word to use here) their bullpens and umpires miss calls. I rarely hold these errors against a person for an extended period of time, particularly officials since I understand the grief of the position and that it is a poor excuse to blame a loss on an umpire.

I can't recall too many times though when a referee or umpire completely owned up to a botched call. There is not a huge group of refs in the Ed Hoculi/Don Denkinger club. It takes a lot of courage. Players and managers, whether genuine or not, fess up to a certain amount of accountability after a loss. You may hear a comment by the head of officials or the league, like in the Georgia-LSU fiasco from a few weeks back, but rarely can I recall a terrible call and the acting offical to offer up a mea culpa.

Marsh, you're better than that. Man up. It him hit. You missed it. It happens. Do you think we're fools and didn't see it?