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Show WHEN CLEVELAND LOST ITS CHANCE (By Tim Hurst, for many years an umpire in the big leagues ) I have been asked to tell of the hardest decisions that I bave ever made. The most Important, I thlDk, occurred several years ago during a game between Cleveland and Baltimore Balti-more at Cleveland. It was the ninth Inning, and the score was tied. Chllds was on second ba?e for Cleveland, with but one out, and Pat Tebeau was at the bat. Hoffer was pitching pitch-ing for Baltimore and Robinson was catching. Hoffer was using a dinky out curvo that broke some distance from the plate and Tabeau was having hav-ing great trouble In meeting It squarely. On several occasions he walked out of the box to hit the ball, and I had repeatedly warned him about It Finally, when Chllds reached second, sec-ond, Tabeau saw an outcurve coming and ran ten feet out of the box to hit It. He met the ball 6quarely before be-fore It "broke" and drove It to cen-terfleld cen-terfleld fence for two bases ChiMs easily scored, making the game 3 to 2, In favor of Cleveland. The crowd was whooping and yelling yell-ing over the victory. Robinson ran up to me and called my attention to the fact that Tabeau had ran out of the batter's box. I knew he was right and during the tumult I called Tabeau out and sent Chllds back to second. The crowd was absolutely stunned. Tabeau came running In from second, sec-ond, and tears were streaming down his face. "You are not golug to call me out for that?" he tatd. "Well, Patsy," 1 replied, "you know that you stepped out of the box, and you are only getting what Is coming to you." "Well, I might have stepped eut a few feet," he walled. "But you ought not to give a decision like that In the presence of this home erorrd." That tied up tho game and it wont along until the twelfth inning, when Baltimore won. You can Imagine that I wa6 a very popular guy In Cleveland that night. But just to show you how they forget those things, when I went back there as an umpire In the American league 1 was given an ovation |