"Stupid old men and their stupid old rules"

I don't know what it is but this has not been a good week for sports officials. Blown calls, bad calls, poor decisions this week has, unfortunately, had it all.

It started Sunday with the final round of the PGA Championship. On the 18th hole Dustin Johnson shanks his drive into the crowd on the right and finds his way into a seemingly innocuous patch of sand that had been trampled by the weekend crowds. He plays out the hole as one normally would making bogey and seemingly forcing a three-way playoff for the championship.

Oh but wait! As it turns out that seemingly innocuous patch of sand wasn't so innocuous, it was in fact a bunker, one of many so-called "waste bunkers" throughout the course. And, clearly not realizing that, Johnson grounded his club as he was taking his practice swings (essentially he put his club into the sand before swinging) which resulted, after about 15 minutes of review, in a two-stroke penalty taking him out of competition.

The PGA's official response was that postings had been made all throughout the week in the locker room that anything that was a bunker or a hazard prior to the start of the tournament was to remain so during the actual play regardless of any cosmetic changes caused by people and/or vehicles. Basically they attempted to cover their own backsides.

There are those that would argue that the officials should have waived that rule given the situation and the circumstances, end of the final major, final group, didn't really gain any advantage etc. There are others who say Dustin should have just known better or there are others, like my girlfriend, who accurately pointed out that he actually grounded his club twice and should have been penalized four strokes, while mumbling about stupid old men and their stupid old rules.

My problem with this situation boils down to two things, the first is that the PGA should have known this was a potential problem and simply deemed that all hazards outside the ropes, or outside the "field of play," were not to be seen as hazards and played normally. The other issue is the only reason why Dustin got penalized was because he was on television as the final group, had this happened to someone earlier in the day who finished in the middle of the pack nothing would have happened, why, because he wouldn't have been on TV.

That was one issue.

The other happened in last night's Yankee/Tigers game. In the bottom of the first Detroit's pitcher plunked Brett Gardner in retaliation for an excessively hard slide into second the day before. Fine, the players police themselves and that's the end of it. But no not really, the home plate umpire Eric Cooper comes out and issues a warning to both benches meaning that the next pitcher to hit a batter in the game is going to be thrown out, as is that pitcher's manager.

Before I go any further let me just say that there is no need to warn anybody. As I said, the players need to police themselves and that will be the end of it.

Things got worse later in the game though. After hitting two home runs Miguel Cabrera is up against the Yankees' Chad Gaudin. Gaudin, after a few pitches, plunks Cabrera on the back, fairly obviously on purpose. Cooper does nothing, Tigers manager Jim Leyland argues the entire rest of the inning, and rightfully so, and gets thrown out for his troubles. Next inning Enrique Gonzalez for the Tigers throws behind Derek Jeter, also clearly on purpose, and again Cooper does nothing.

Ok, you shouldn't have warned the benches in the first place but once you did you had to uphold your own ruling. By not doing so you've not only made a mockery out of the rulebook your supposed to enforce, but you've also made a mockery of yourself and shown that you have no credibility and are an embarrassment.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, there needs to be accountability for officials who screw up. They need to be fined, suspended, put on probation, anything to make them actually do their jobs the right way and not be lazy.