Minot’s Gary Cederstrom Umpires Nearly 6 Hour MLB Game on Saturday Night
Gary Cederstrom, originally from Minot, is an umpire for Major League Baseball and he was involved in one crazy game on Saturday night.
The Yankees and Red Sox were playing in a game at Fenway Park that began at 4pm local time (3pm central time) and was televised nationally on Fox Sports 1 on July 15.
The game went 16 innings and lasted five hours and 50 minutes. It was the longest game at Fenway Park since the 1960s.
And in that 16 innings, there were some crazy plays.
First in the eighth inning, Cederstrom and his crew had to review this call of a Red Sox player caught stealing.
Then in the ninth inning, there was another review when Jacoby Ellsbury of the Yankees swiped second base.
In the 11th inning, Gary Cederstrom was dealing with one of baseball's most bizarre plays of the season. Matt Holliday was standing on first base when batter Jacoby Ellsbury hit a hard hit grounder to first base.
Holliday, assumed the first basemen stepped on first to retire Ellsbury. That meant that in order to get Holliday out, he would need to be tagged out at second. It also meant that Holliday did not have to actually advance to second base.
So Holliday retreated back to first as the throw went to second base. There was only one problem though. The first basemen never stepped on first. He threw it straight to second base. That meant Matt Holliday was out. By retreating back to first, he got in the way of the return throw back to first.
The Red Sox felt Holliday interfered by sliding back into first base. After a nearly five minute review, the umpires decided that Holliday did not interfere with the play. Holliday was still out, but Ellsbury was still awarded first base.
And if you're wondering what the umpires talk about in those headsets during replay reviews, Cederstrom told us in an interview last July.
But anyway, it was quite the game for Cederstrom and his crew. Kudos to him for sweating it out for nearly six hours and dealing with a lot of manager arguments.
[MLB.com]