Ryne Sandberg is still upset about a ruling at home plate on Saturday against the Reds

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Yesterday afternoon, the Phillies found themselves trailing the Reds 6-3 with Marlon Byrd on first base and two outs. Domonic Brown ripped the first pitch from Alfredo Simon into the gap in right-center field. Speedy center fielder Billy Hamilton corralled the ball and fired a perfect relay throw to second baseman Brandon Phillips, who then made a perfect one-hop throw to catcher Devin Mesoraco with Byrd still several feet from home plate. Byrd and Mesoraco collided, and Byrd was ruled out.

Phillies manager Ryne Sandberg had the umpires review the play, suggesting that Mesoraco had not provided an adequate lane to home plate for Byrd. However, the umpires upheld the ruling and Byrd was out. Sandberg strongly disagreed, so he came back out to make his case to home plate umpire Tom Hallion. He was immediately ejected. The Phillies went on to lose by one run, 6-5. Per MLB.com’s Todd Zolecki, an MLB spokesman said the play was upheld because replay officials felt that Byrd did indeed have a sufficient lane to the plate. You can watch the play here and decide for yourself.

Sandberg was still unhappy with it after the game and says the interpretations of the rules have been inconsistent. Via Matt Gelb of the Philadelphia Inquirer:

“He put his shin guard down and blocked the plate without the ball,” Sandberg said. “I think that’s gone against us three times on different interpretations on different scenarios. Everyone just wants to know what the rule is. What is it? It can’t be just whoever is there [in New York] has their opinion, because we’re teaching the catchers one thing. We’re telling baserunners another thing.

“They want to eliminate a collision with the catcher, well, the catcher instigated the collision by blocking home plate without the ball.”

Even Mesoraco said he isn’t sure if he broke the rules:

“It’s such a hard rule to decipher, and it’s such a tough thing to really – it’s not black and white,” Mesoraco said. “My first goal is to catch the ball and tag the guy from there. If they want to call him out, they’ll call him out.”

This will certainly not be the first nor the last time that the murky rules surrounding home plate collisions leads to a misunderstanding.

Royals’ John Sherman optimistic about new ballpark, current team

Denny Medley-USA TODAY Sports
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The first thing that Kansas City Royals owner John Sherman thinks about when he wakes up each morning is how the club, stuck in what seems like an interminable rebuild, will play on that particular day.

Not where they will play four or five years down the road.

Yet given the modest expectations for a team that lost nearly 100 games a year ago, it makes sense many Royals fans are just as interested – quite possibly more so – in the plans for a downtown ballpark than whether infielder Bobby Witt Jr. can double down on his brilliant rookie season or pitcher Brady Singer can truly become a staff ace.

That’s why Sherman’s second thought probably moves to the downtown ballpark, too.

“This is a huge decision, and I look at it as maybe the most important decision we’ll make as long as we have the privilege of stewarding this team,” Sherman said before the Royals held a final workout Wednesday ahead of opening day. “I’m probably as anxious as you to get moving on that, but it’s a complicated process.”

The Royals have called Kauffman Stadium home since the sister to Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs, opened 50 years ago next month.

And while most stadiums are replaced because they have become outdated, the unique, space-aged look of Kauffman Stadium – built during an era in which teams trended toward impersonal, multisport concrete donuts for their homes – remains beloved by Royals fans and visitors alike.

The problem is that despite numerous renovations over the years, the very concrete holding the ballpark together has begun to crumble in places. The cost simply to repair and maintain the ballpark has become prohibitive.

So with the decision essentially made for them to build an entirely new stadium, the Royals revealed plans to build an entire development in the same mold of The Battery Atlanta, where the Braves built Truist Park, and the Ballpark Village in St. Louis, where the new Busch Stadium is merely the centerpiece of a whole entertainment district.

No site has been secured, but several of the most promising are in downtown Kansas City, where the Power & Light District along with T-Mobile Center have spearheaded a successful era of urban renewal.

Sherman has said that private funds would cover the majority of the stadium cost and the entire village, each carrying a price tag of about $1 billion.

But if any public funding will be used, as it was to build and maintain Kauffman Stadium, then it would need to be voted upon, and the earliest that it could show up on a ballot would be August.

“You look at Atlanta, they took some raw ground – they started with 85 acres – and that has been a complete home run,” said Sherman, who purchased the Royals in August 2019, shortly before the pandemic wreaked havoc on team finances.

“This is one of the reasons we want to do this: That’s helped the Braves become more competitive,” Sherman said of the vast potential for increased revenue for one of the smallest-market teams in baseball. “They have locked up and extended the core of their future, and the Braves are in a great position from a baseball standpoint.”

So perhaps the first two thoughts Sherman has each day – about performance and the future – are one and the same.

When it comes to the team itself, the Royals were largely quiet throughout the winter, though that was by design.

Rather than spending heavily on free agents that might help them win a few more games, they decided to stay the course with a promising young roster in the hopes that the development of those players would yield better results.

In fact, Sherman said, the club has been discussing extensions for some of the Royals’ foundational pieces – presumably Witt, who was fourth in voting for AL rookie of the year, and Singer, who was 10-5 with a 3.23 ERA last season.

“We’re having conversations about that as we speak,” Sherman said. “We have a number of young players that we’re trying to evaluate and we’re talking to their representatives about what might work.”

Just because the Royals’ roster largely looks the same, that doesn’t mean nothing has changed. The Royals fired longtime general manager Dayton Moore in September and moved J.J. Picollo to the role, then fired manager Mike Matheny in October and replaced him with longtime Indians and Rays coach Matt Quatraro.

Sherman said the new voices created a palpable energy in spring training that he hopes carries into the regular season.

“When we acquired the team, we had three primary objectives,” Sherman said. “One was to win more games; we’re working on that. The second was to secure the future; that’s what (the stadium) is. And the third was to do good in the community.

“But the first priority,” he said, “is really the on-field product. That’s what really lifts everything else up.”