It's safe to say these umpires should be out of a job

ANAHEIM, Calif. -- At the top of the food chain, a major league umpire makes upward of $300,000 to work six months a year. Don't choke on that, because it gets worse.

Tim McClelland is at the top of the food chain.

Choke on that.

Tim McClelland is the guy who umpired third base Tuesday night in the American League Championship Series. He mistakenly determined that the Yankees' Nick Swisher had left third base too soon when scoring on Johnny Damon's fly ball in the fourth -- then couldn't go one whole inning before making a worse call in the fifth. That's when he called New York's Robinson Cano safe at third after Angels catcher Mike Napoli tagged him while Cano stood about a foot from the bag -- and no more than five feet from McClelland.

Tim McClelland is the clown who made a joke of Game 4.

You and me? We're the clowns who didn't.

We're clowns because we didn't have the foresight to start umpiring at age 15 like McClelland, working Little League and high school games before moving to professional baseball and then moving up the ladder toward all those big league fields of dreams. We're not making $300,000 to work six months a year. We're not joking with ballplayers between innings. We're not on television.

On the bright side, we're not screwing up the 2009 playoffs.

Tim McClelland is screwing it up -- and there are a whole lot of Tim McClellands out there. That's what is so scary about the rash of ugly umpiring that has scarred the 2009 postseason: These guys might actually be the best umpires that baseball has to offer. And how awful an idea is that? If McClelland and some of his mates worked the drive-thru at McDonald's, they'd hand you the wrong sandwich and forget your fries.

For fans of the game, the only relief to be felt at this moment is that neither McClelland nor his blooper brother from Tuesday night, second-base umpire Dale Scott, screwed up the totality of the game as awfully as they screwed up a handful of individual calls. The Yankees deserved to win Game 4, albeit by a slightly bigger margin than the 10-1 final that put them one victory from the World Series.

But that's where the relief ends, because the reality is this: There is no reason, none at all, to think the umpiring in the World Series will be any better than the umpiring in the first two rounds of the postseason.

I'm not talking about the missed bang-bang plays, either. Nobody reasonable would expect umpires to get those instantaneous calls correct every time, though we could reasonably ask baseball to expand its instant replay to correct those mistakes. Mistakes like the pitch that seemed to hit Detroit's Brandon Inge with the bases loaded in the 12th inning of the Tigers' loss to Minnesota in their one-game playoff. Or like the play when Colorado first baseman Todd Helton was mistakenly ruled off the bag on a Chase Utley groundout when replays showed Helton was in fact touching the base. Or even the play Tuesday night when the Angels picked off Swisher from second base by a few inches, and Scott missed it. The game moves fast, and mistakes happen. Instant replay would help, but those were understandable mistakes.

How in the world does Tim McClelland NOT see Robinson Cano get tagged out here? (Getty Images)

But some of these other mistakes ... they defy comprehension.

There was the Joe Mauer fly ball that was ruled foul by umpire Phil Cuzzi, even as he was in perfect position to get it right -- standing about 20 feet away and staring directly at the ball when it hit a foot inside fair territory. That denied Mauer a double in the 11th inning in the Division Series against the Yankees, the Twins didn't score that inning, and minutes later they lost when the Yankees did.

And there were the two blown calls by McClelland in Game 4, each galling for its own reason. On the appeal that cost Swisher a run in the fourth, McClelland seemed to be offering the Angels a makeup call for Scott's mistake moments earlier, when Swisher was picked off second but called safe. The idea of a makeup call, an intentional umpiring mistake, is egregious enough -- but McClelland wasn't even looking at Swisher on the play in question. Replays showed him staring into the outfield as Swisher left third base.

In the fifth, McClelland stood feet away as the Yankees screwed up on the base paths and ended up with two players -- Jorge Posada and Cano -- at third base at the same time. Unsure what to do, both Yankees stepped off the bag. Napoli tagged them both, but McClelland called only Posada out.

McClelland ruled Cano safe, and afterward when he gave a brief statement to the media, he said he thought Cano had been standing on the base. I was roughly 300 feet away -- 30 rows up, in the press box behind home plate -- and I could see Cano standing well off the base. McClelland was five feet away, and he couldn't? That's frightening.

But McClelland has a history of being historically bad. He butchered the rulebook in the infamous Pine Tar Game of 1983, calling George Brett out after Brett had homered with a bat with an excessive amount of pine tar. Then-AL president Lee MacPhail cited several reasons why McClelland was in error -- the bat could be removed from the game, MacPhail had said, but Brett couldn't be called out; and the pine tar didn't violate the "spirit of the rules" because it wasn't altered for advantageous reasons -- and overruled him.

That was 1983, and if you're looking to make excuses, here's one: McClelland was a rookie back then. But two years ago, he was not. That was the Matt Holliday game. Remember? Holliday was with the Rockies in 2007 when he scored the winning run in a one-game playoff with the Padres. Problem was, Holliday was blocked from the plate and didn't touch it. No matter. The umpire said he had. Game over. Rockies advance. Padres go home.

The umpire behind home plate? Tim McClelland.

Here in 2009, the Angels-Yankees series is his eighth NLCS or ALCS. He also has worked four World Series and three All-Star Games. The frequency of those elite assignments is an indicator that Tim McClelland is one of the best umpires in baseball.

Anyone know the Heimlich? I'm choking on that last paragraph.