Sports Officials Are In The Spotlight

Only a year after one of the NFL's best officials, Ed Hochuli, botched a very important call at the end of the San Diego/Denver game, both NBA officials and MLB umpires have been in the news a lot lately. That one bad call changed the outcome of the early season NFL game between the Chargers and Broncos. Behind 38-31 and in SD's red-zone, Denver QB Jay Cutler very obviously fumbled, and San Diego recovered. But Hochuli inadvertently blew the whistle (which kills the play no matter what the call would end up), and the result was Denver getting another opportunity. They not only went on to score the touchdown, but went for two, and won 39-38.

Here's the play:


Just yesterday it was reported that the NBA's locked-out officials are closer than ever to an agreement, which would bring them back in time for the opening of the season next week. This is a good thing because so far this preseason, some of the calls have been absolutely hideous.

-UPDATE- It's a done deal: The regular NBA refs will be back for the start of the regular season.

Last but not least, there is similar news in MLB. Mostly as a result of three incredibly bad calls during game-4 of Yankees/Angels ALCS, it is now being reported that ONLY the most-senior veteran umps will work this year's World Series.

Here are those three bad calls. Out at second.. never left early at third.. and both players were out at third.

There was yet another bad call in tonight's game! Damon was clearly safe at first.

Heck, even several college football teams have made a stink about bad calls this past weekend:
Arkansas/Florida 1
Arkansas/Florida 2
Georgia/LSU 1
Georgia/LSU 2

Thanks Kurt