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BASEBALL : DAILY REPORT : DODGERS : Officially, Question Is Rendered Moot

By BILL PLASCHKE
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Because Tuesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates was rained out, it cost the Dodgers a rare chance to have an official protest upheld after a play so strange, 20-year veteran umpire Bruce Froemming said he had never seen it.

Juan Samuel was on second base after a one-out double in the first inning. Darryl Strawberry was batting. John Smiley, the Pirate pitcher, claimed Samuel did not touch first base and threw to first for the appeal. Smiley’s foot did not leave the rubber and Samuel was ordered to take third base on a balk.

But Froemming ruled that because Smiley was making an official play, his foot did not have to leave the rubber and ordered Samuel to return to second. An enraged Dodger Manager Tom Lasorda argued that an appeal is not an official play and filed the protest, which was rendered moot when the game was rained out.

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Bill Plaschke

Bill Plaschke, an L.A. Times sports columnist since 1996, is a member of the National Sports Media Hall of Fame and California Sports Hall of Fame. He has been named national Sports Columnist of the Year nine times by the Associated Press, and twice by the Society of Professional Journalists and National Headliner Awards. He is the author of six books, including a collection of his columns entitled “Plaschke: Good Sports, Spoilsports, Foul Balls and Oddballs.” Plaschke is also a panelist on the popular ESPN daily talk show, “Around the Horn.” He is in the national Big Brothers/Big Sisters Alumni Hall of Fame and has been named Man of the Year by the Los Angeles Big Brothers/Big Sisters as well as receiving a Pursuit of Justice Award from the California Women’s Law Center. Plaschke has appeared in a movie (“Ali”), a dramatic HBO series (“Luck”) and, in a crowning cultural moment he still does not quite understand, his name can be found in a rap song “Females Welcome” by Asher Roth.

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