As an astrophysicist and Whovian, I often ponder time travel and what happens when you alter an event in time. What are the quatum outcomes of such an event?
Look, the Mets shouldn’t appeal the hit in the first inning. The basic argument I can make is that if the Mets appeal the hit, then the Cardinals can appeal the Beltran ruling. Are we going to then give Dickey a No-No and then take away Santana’s?
I know the counter point to what I just wrote is that Beltran’s hit is due to an umpire ruling while the Wright error is due to the score keeper at the ball park. Even though that is true, I don’t think we can just make that hit disappear and pretend that for certain everything would go the same.
Dickey had incredible stuff last night, but things change during a no-hitter, especially from the opposing batters perspective. If the Rays had no hits in the late innings, there is no guarentee they would have made the same decisions at the plate, when to swing, when to take, when to bunt, etc.
Also, what if Wright fielded it cleanly? Did he really have enough time to get to first? If he gloved it, it would have been close. If he fielded it cleanly with his hand, he probably gets the out. But, we also see a lot of balls hit like this every day that can go either way. It was a hard hit ball, it was a difficult play. It’s a hit. We know the rules for what is a hit or an error can be extremely subjective at times.
Baseball has a human element. It has always been part of the game and last night it may have or may not have screwed the Mets out of a no-hitter. We’ll never know. And since we’ll never know, for this case at least, let’s not mess with further.
