A hundred degrees for the Series? Good. I say make it hot for the cowardly home plate umps

I trust that the tin crown billionaires of baseball can now enjoy their stupid, boring, inconsequential, meaningless, six-hours-per-game World Series, because nobody - NOBODY - will be watching. At least I won't be. To me, the grapes they're offering look mighty sour. Dodgers v. Astros? That's not a world series. That's the NL West. It's Raul Mondesi v. Lance Berkman. It's wildfires v. floods. It's Harvey Weinstein v. the Texas high school social studies teachers who constantly bed down 11th graders. Nobody - anywhere - will watch. We all have better things to do this time of year... like... um... bobbing for apples.

In fact, from now on, this is a bobbing-for-apples blog: IT IS HIGH, IT IS FLOATING, IT IS... bit! You know what the trick is to getting the good bob? Press the apple against the rim of the barrel, squeeze it with your chin, go below the water and explode upwards, like the Pacific Life whale. Rookies attack from above, and the apple simply goes underwater. You cannot snag an apple coming from above. You will get apple squat. (Tomorrow: Winning at musical chairs.)

But but but... I'm still smarting from the inescapable sense that the recent Houston-New York series was the most unfairly called playoffs in memory. Every game went to the home team, and in each case, the home plate umpires were playing like Pavaroti to the crowds. Of course, the Yankees received three plates of home cooking. But in the end, heading back to Houston, you knew the balls and strikes would be going the Astros' way, and to no one's surprise, that's what happened.

I'm not referring to the close calls at first, or that snap throw to the plate that nailed Greg Bird. Those were studied and, when necessary, overruled by video replay. But balls and strikes are another matter. And throughout the series, the strike zones shimmied like Shakira, with huge impacts on the outcomes. Over and over, home plate umps seemed swayed by crowds that were louder and wilder than anyone had seen all year. They talk about a "tenth man." The home plate umpires became just that.

It showed on the Fox automated strike zone grids, which often contradicted the calls. I'm not saying machine strike zones are perfect, but at least they don't move like a butterfly. And for Houston's junk-ballers - Dallas Keuchel and Lance McCullers, in particular - those shifting zones turned October into Christmas.

I wonder if somewhere in the world of science, there will be a pitch-by-pitch analysis of the series. It's right there for anyone with copy of the Fox broadcasts. And to be clear: I'm not saying the umps consciously favored either team. I just think they were unconsciously swayed by the crowds, and it became the real home field advantage. 

As an old fart dinosaur from another era, I hate to see humanity replaced by machines. But that doesn't have to happen in baseball. There will always be the need for a home plate ump - calling balks, controlling the pace, settling disputes, etc. And if we as a nation are moving toward driverless cars and drone-delivered pizza, we damn well ought to be able to perfect the automated strike zone. It would have made a fair ALCS... something we did not see. So the series is starting? Who cares? I've gone bobbing.