Last night, I was making my way north to Connecticut on I-95, and in an effort to stay awake, I was listening to talk radio. (I own that it was, perhaps, a misguided effort.)  I was zoning out a bit, but the show’s host caught my attention when he started in on a rant about justice and the application of the law. For, truly, there are few concepts that I care about more than justice.

Those of you who know me know that I’m nothing if not just.

The host, perhaps a bit misguided himself, was talking about the upside to the Giuliani Administration.  The host appreciated that Giuliani acknowledged that the law was the law and took it seriously as such, even in cases when it seemed inconsequential in the grand scheme of things.  The specific examples he cited were panhandling and guys with squeegees.

Ah, yes. It begins with the squeegees but then before you know it, in the immortal words of W.B. Yeats, “mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.”

He went on from there to say, “You see, it starts with, say, a petty robbery, a break-in and the police saying, ‘Well, you can file the report, but we’re not going to do anything about it.’  Yes, it starts with selling drugs in the street, and maybe you say, ‘Ah well that’s not such a big deal.’  Keep doing enough of that, the next thing you know, you’ve got total lawlessness. You’ve got Deadwood.”

No, this was not Rush Limbaugh or a one-off conservative guest on NPR talking about the need to invest more money in our police force.  It was Richard Neer on WFAN. And he was talking about last night’s blown call at third base.

Like I said, it starts with the squeegees, and then it’s only a matter of time before you’re turning and turning in the widening gyre.

Leaving aside the fact that Neer’s rant took a kind of weird ideological turn, he’s right about one thing: Marty Foster made the wrong call. Derek Jeter tries to steal third in the first, the ball beats him there, and Foster calls him out even though Jeter’s hand is clearly ahead of the tag.

Now, it would be one thing if Foster had just gotten it wrong, said, “Sorry, according to what I saw, which is incorrect, you did not beat the tag.”  I think I’ve already made my feelings on umps and bad calls pretty clear. Human error has always been and always will be part of the game. Until we can just get robots to play the damn thing, anyway. It’s part of the joy, getting to yell, “What are you, blind, ump?”  Sometimes, the cookie crumbles your way, sometimes, it doesn’t. (Truth be told, I don’t actually understand this expression.)

However, last night’s call did not boil down to a failure to see the action correctly.  When Jeter and later Girardi went to Foster to argue, he told them that third baseman Scott Rolen did not have to tag Jeter to make the out.

To quote Derek Jeter, “I wasn’t aware there was a rule change.”

Ultimately, last night’s issue was about either the misunderstanding of or the willful misapplication of the rules. Of baseball. By the guy who’s supposed to be enforcing the rules. Of baseball.

In either case, it’s a bit of a worry.

One of the duties of the umpire is “enforcing the rules of the game.”  By definition, if an umpire doesn’t know the rules of the game, he’s going to have trouble enforcing them.  So, if the issue was one of misunderstanding, the Foster is generally going to have trouble performing one of his primary duties.

However, if it was a question of misapplication, then we’ve got possibly a bigger problem on our hands.  A problem of the mere anarchy is loosed upon the world variety.

Some of you may recall a piece I wrote about a treasure of a girl named Jessica.  She seemed to think that because she worked at some kind of a summer camp, she was entitled to go in the express lane at the super market despite having what was clearly more than the appropriate number of items in her cart. (Well, it was clear if you could count, anyway.)  I compared her to Vicente Padilla, who had received two balk calls, perhaps not totally earned in spirit. However, this was my ultimate conclusion:

“While you could argue that the law exists for the sake of its spirit, the only real way to make reasonable assessments is to follow the law to the letter. Rules exist for a reason, and since there’s no good way to determine intent, perhaps the only way is to use the guidelines that are pre-prescribed.”

This is more or less what Neer was trying to say. Except, nothing against Neer, but my way makes a little more sense.

According to crew chief John Hirschbeck, “It used to be if the ball beats you, you’re out.”  However, even Hirschbeck owns that that’s not the way we do things anymore. I don’t care how they did things in the Days of Yore. The rules are the rules. If Foster was aware of them and didn’t adhere to them, that would fall under the umbrella of willful misapplication.

The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.

Ultimately, Jeter had no business running. With no outs in the first, getting called out at third is something of a little league mistake.  You don’t steal, and as Girardi put it, if you do, you damn sure better make it.  Jeter was quick to point out in response that, technically speaking, he did.

I guess we’ll know more when Marty Foster makes his statement.

Surely some revelation is at hand.