A poorly-positioned umpire played a role in a walk-off win at the Little League World Series on Monday night.
Texas and Georgia were squaring off in an elimination game at Williamsport, Penn. and went to extra innings. The game was tied 6-6 in the bottom of the ninth when Georgia had runners on the corners with one out. A flyout to right allowed runner Wills Maginnis to tag up and score the winning run, but not without controversy. The umpire in right stood in the way of right fielder Matthew Hedrick trying to make a throw home.
Take a look at the positioning of the umpire down the right field line:
WALK-OFF WIN IN WILLIAMSPORT!
Georgia wins 7-6 after playing into the 9th inning! pic.twitter.com/fSrwIHwvWI
— ESPN (@espn) August 21, 2018
Hey Ump, only the game winning run tagging at 3rd. Way to stand directly in the way pic.twitter.com/5T1qK73sk5
— Big Cat (@BarstoolBigCat) August 21, 2018
There’s no way to know whether Hedrick would have been able to throw out Maginnis at the plate had the umpire not been in his way. But we do know that the positioning prevented him from having his best shot at getting the out. That was a pretty disappointing example of an umpire getting in the way. Unfortunately, we’ve seen worse examples of umps trying to sabotage players.
