6B THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
SPORTS
TUESDAY. OCTOBER 25. 2005
NHL
Carolina drives Ottawa from top of win column
RALEIGH, N.C. - The Carolina Hurricanes rallied to hand the Ottawa Senators their first loss of the season, 3-2 on Monday night.
Matt Cullen also scored for the Hurricanes, and Martin Gerber finished with 44 saves.
The Nashville Predators
(7-0) are the only remaining
unbeaten team in the NHL.
——The Associated Press
Red Wings fly past Blue Jackets
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Brendan Shanahan and Pavel Datsyuk helped Detroit win its sixth straight game, 6-2. Manny Legace, who has been in goal in all 10 games this season, made 31 saves to tie the NHL record for victories by a goalie in October.
The Associated Press
The Red Wings also beat the Blue Jackets 6-0 on Saturday at Nationwide Arena.
Volleyball
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B
Correa, one of the team's leaders on and off the court. Since she went down with a season-ending knee injury, Kansas has not won and has captured only three games in that span of five matches.
Bechard has remained adamant that his team has to play with the hand they've been dealt.
"We can't talk about it anymore since she's not there," he said. "I told the team we have to move on."
The Jayhawks have to move forward if they hope to be the first team in Kansas history to make the tournament three consecutive years. Senior middle blocker Josi Lima provided some direction to get through the tough times.
"It's very frustrating, but we need to keep our heads up," she said. "We are really close to playing very well."
- Edited by Alison Peterson
Fans cry foul on official calls
MLB
Technology gives viewers perspective
BY MIKE FITZPATRICK THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
HOUSTON — Jermaine Dye did the smart thing: He kept quiet and went to first base.
Foul ball or hit by pitch?
He knew all along the ball glanced off his bat but he wasn't about to tell the umpires.
Incredibly, the men in blue had yet another questionable call to make in Game 2 of the World Series, and it seems almost every one has gone Chicago's way in October.
"These couple of calls have overshadowed the way we're playing," manager Ozzie Guillen said Monday as the teams worked out at Minute Maid Park. "Take a look at the way we play, take a look at the way we pitch, take a look at the way we come back. ... I've said before, I'd rather be lucky than good, and I think we've been more lucky than good."
If the White Sox feel slighted,
the umpies feel slandered.
Night after night, postseason games are turning on difficult calls in key situations. With slow-motion instant replay and super-camera angles, fans watching at home can clearly
That leads to unwanted attention for a distinguished group of arbiters who would rather remain anonymous. And it leads to plenty of criticism, too.
see when the umps make even a minor mistake — and especially a major one.
"They're getting blistered for things that happen every day," said Jerry Crawford, the crew chief for this year's AL championship series, which was filled with disputed calls. "My beef is you guys are supposed to report on what happens. You're not supposed to dwell on what happens."
Umpires are graded throughout the regular season, then selected for postseason assignments. Crawford, a major league ump since 1976, said he and his colleagues are doing the best they can.
"Do, we make mistakes? Absolutely," he said. "It's the weird things that have happened that have put a damper on this. The balls and strikes, there haven't been many beefs, and that's probably the most important part."
Questionable calls have marked the entire postseason—a year after umpires were praised for huddling to get key calls correct in October, even if it meant overturning the original ruling.
The ruckus began in Game 2 of this year's ALCS against the Angels, when plate umpire Doug Eddings called strike three on A.J. Pierzynski — but not the third out in the bottom of the ninth inning.
Eddings ruled that Los Angeles catcher Josh Paul did not glove Kelvim Escobar's low pitch before it hit the ground. Pierzynski alertly hustled to first in just one. so the An-
— just in case — even as the gels were walking off the field, thinking the inning was over.
Moments later, Joe Crede's game-winning double evened the series.
The confusing call sure seemed to take all the starch out of the Angels, who lost the next three games at home and were eliminated.
Later, Eddings said he should have been more emphatic in making the "no-catch" call.
Chicago has not lost since.
Pierzynski got another break in Game 4 when plate umpire Ron Kulpa did not call him for catcher's interference after his mitt tipped Steve Finley's bat.
The NLCS had its share, too. Plate umpire Phil Cuzzi ejected Cardinals manager Tony La Russa and star centerfielder Jim Edmonds for arguing balls and strikes in Game 4.
“T
In Game 6, Astros shortstop Adam Everett missed a key tag at second base, but umpire Greg Gibson called Yadier Molina out.
I take a look at the way we play, take a look at the way we pitch, take a look at the way we come back. ... I've said before, I'd rather be lucky than good, and I think we've been more lucky than good."
Ozzie Guillen
Chicago White Sox manager
that could have been done otherwise? I think the umpires in fairness would be the first to admit that," said Mike Port, hired by the commissioner's office as vice president of umpiring on Aug. 1. "If there's any good to come from this that we've experienced thus far in the postseason, it's in the category of lessons learned."
"He might have done 67 other umpires a favor. Everybody's taken note of that play," Port said.
And Port even thinks the dispute over the Pierzynski play could have a positive effect in the future.
Dye was up Sunday night with
two on, two outs and a 3-2 count.
A foul ball would have kept him at the plate, and perhaps Houston would have escaped the jam with its 4-2 lead intact.
But he was awarded first base by plate umpire Jeff Nelson, though replays showed Dan Wheeler's seventh-inning pitch actually hit Dye's bat, not his hand or forearm — and the slugger later admitted as much. Paul Konerko followed with a go-ahead grand slam off Chad Qualls, and the White Sox beat Houston 7-6 for a 2-1 lead.
"I could see where he thought I got hit. It was a ball up and in." Dye said. "It's tough to tell with the naked eye. It showed on the replay it hit my bat, but I'm not going to tell him it hit my bat and that I'm not going to first."
Astros manager Phil Garner argued the call but didn't blame his team's loss on the umpires.
"I just don't think that was the major play," Garner said. "We had opportunities in the game we didn't take advantage of."
In fairness, the White Sox aren't winning by accident. They are 9-1 in the postseason and have won 14 of 15 games overall dating to the regular season. They've outscored their opponents 59-29 in the post-season.
"People are saying we are getting these great breaks. At the same time, they are not scoring us any runs," Pierzynski said.
Snyder
CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18
one of us, coaches, staff, players giving to each other. If we do that, it can be real and it can be special. I don't know how many wins that would get, and I don't really care. I will be satisfied if we play our asses off and are unselfish.
"Who knows, they may can my ass, but you know what I'll feel
good about it. I feel great about what I've done at Missouri."
Snyder, who will be in his sixth year at Missouri, took the Tigers to four consecutive NCAA tournaments in his first four years at Missouri. Since then, the Tigers have failed to make the Big Dance and have been eliminated in the first round of the postseason NIT tournament.
Combine Missouri's off-the-
court struggles — the NCAA slapped a two-year probation on the Tigers for violations surrounding Clemons — with their struggles on the court during the past two years and the result could be frustration and anger. Snyder and his players seem to have a different outlook on it.
"What happened last year motivated me to work harder," senior center Kevin Young said of the Tigers 75-70 season-end.
ing loss to DePaul in the NIT. "It motivated our team to work harder — at times everyone gets a little frustrated, but it's just how you handle your frustration ... we all just learned how to deal with it."
Snyder said that in order to open himself up to a new, positive outlook on the season, he had to put aside all of the frustrations he had from the past three years. He said it was difficult for him to
open up the paper and read all of the negative articles about the Tigers. Snyder, however, said he has put all of the negative off-the-court drama behind him.
"I regret the quote-unquote investigation," Snyder said. "But you know what? We haven't had a violation in three years. I don't need to talk about that anymore."
Edited by Erick R. Schmidt
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