Baseball:

I’ll start by saying that Chino Hills absolutely earned its 4-3 Baseline League victory over their visitors from Los Osos.

The Grizzlies had their chances on Wednesday, they made some mistakes on defense, and they came up short.

The Huskies should be commended for securing the No. 3 seed out of the very tough and competitive Baseline League.

With their win over LOHS coupled with Damien’s 6-4 victory over Etiwanda, CHHS has a one and one-half game lead over the fourth-place Eagles.

And there’s only one game remaining in the 2024 regular season, so Etiwanda will be unable to catch the Huskies.

I’ll also say, as a reporter for the past 25 years, I have literally never posted about a questionable call in any sport.

But what happened at Chino Hills High School was both wrong and reckless.

To give a little backstory about the importance of this game, Los Osos came in with a one-half game lead over second-place (at the time) Damien.

The Grizzlies trailed 4-1 in the top of the fifth inning, and they had the bases loaded and one out.

A Chino Hills pitcher got the LOHS batter to pop up behind the first-base bag, and the Huskies second baseman made the catch.

The infield-fly rule was in effect and each of the three Los Osos runners stayed put.

And that’s why the following seemed absurd to most and infuriating to the Grizzlies coaches and players.

After making the catch, the Chino Hills second baseman attempted to throw the ball home in spite of the runner at third not making a move towards the plate.

His throw, however, pegged the LOHS batter who was jogging towards first base in foul territory.

Out of the blue, the home-plate umpired called the runner out for interference.

That meant instead of having a bases-loaded and two-out scenario, the top of the fifth inning had ended.

It set off a fiery conversation between Grizzlies coach Travis Kelly and the umpire.

What made it even more ironic was that a couple of Chino Hills parents commented that they had never seen that before, and they couldn’t understand why that call was made.

What made it so damaging and unnecessary was the fact that the Los Osos runner made no attempt to get in the way of the throw, and there was no advantage gained by either side.

All three runners were content to stay at first, second and third base.

The old saying that one can measure an ump’s performance based on how little they’re talked about seems apropos in this case.

Unfortunately, in this particular game, that one unnecessary call in the late stages of a pennant chase changed the trajectory of a game that featured two good and well-coached programs.

The Grizzlies would rally for a pair of seventh-inning runs to pull to within 4-3, but to their credit, the Huskies closed out the victory with a Los Osos batter just 90 feet from tying the game.

Just to make sure I wasn’t missing something, I called a number of high school and college coaches and none of them could believe what they heard.

In fact, more than one coach said they would have likely gotten tossed had that happened at one of their games this late in the season.

Up next: Chino Hills travels to Los Osos on Friday afternoon in the regular season finale for both teams.

Damien travels to Etiwanda today (Thursday), and with a win, the Spartans would secure an outright Baseline League championship.

Good luck to all of our area’s Baseline League programs that qualify for next week’s CIF-SS playoffs.