Buck Belue quarterbacked Georgia to a national championship in 1980. He’s a legend for all of that, but this was really what makes people remember him more than 30 years later:
He also played baseball at Georgia, batting .356 which, as we learned in Bull Durham, is a career in any league. He played in the Expos organization for three years and that’s how he finds himself in broadcasting in Atlanta today, trading on his considerable name power and sports knowledge to make a fine career.
One of his side projects is to call a bit of college baseball on television, as he did today. Auburn was busy losing to Georgia, and Belue was making fun of the Tigers, but also pointing out every questionable call questionable umpires were making. Those guys haven’t had a weekend. (That sentence applies to both Auburn and the umpires.)
So I poked fun at Buck Belue on Twitter for making fun of the umpires. He said “Dude blew the call.”
And the dude did. It was a call that should have gone in favor for Georgia — a swipe tag at second that happened right in front of the properly positioned umpire — but I calls ’em likes I sees ’em. This umpire …
… sometimes he doesn’t see ’em.
(Sorry … it’s just … those glasses … )
Auburn lost Friday night in a game which featured good starting pitching for Auburn and no bats — Georgia’s starting pitcher had a great game. Then there was an unfortunate sixth inning which saw four Auburn pitchers allow two hits, four walks, a hit batsman and four runs in a 5-2 loss.
Tonight’s game saw errors three spread across 11 innings, in a 6-5 Auburn loss that featured more bad calls from the same umpire crew. The guy above was behind the plate last night and he blew a call that would have scored a key run for Auburn. He’s had a tough weekend.
Hope yours, though, has been lovely.
