Left field umpire Phil Cuzzi made one of the great all-time blunders last night when he called a ball that landed nearly a foot inside the baseline a foul ball even though he was standing just yards away and had the perfect angle on it.
(Click the photo to enlarge.) That turned a ground rule double into a strike and arguably cost the Twins a series-tying game against the Yankees. I say "arguably" because Mauer still reached base, the Twins still loaded them up with nobody out, and they still managed to not score a run. So who knows? It's kind of hard for me to get exercised about this, because there have been far worse crimes perpetrated on behalf of both the Yankees and the Twins. I'm over it, just don't look here for sympathy.

Still, what a terrible call. That's like NBA-level bad.

Got an image you'd like to see in here first thing in the morning? Send it to tips@deadspin.com. Subject: Morning crap.

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So we've got a full day of college football, more playoff games, and if you behave yourselves—maybe some WNBA talk. (Or not.) Grab some breakfast and then get comfortable. We've got a lot to cover.

The clip is from the Twins' 6-5 loss to Detroit on Tuesday (with excellent captioning by one Tony Faust, a 28-year-old graphic designer living in Maple Grove, Minn. — a Twins fan, as it turns out). The team is denying everything, of course. Via Joe Christensen of the Minneapolis Star Tribune:

"That video's a joke!" Justin Morneau said.

"That's why we're three games back — we're stealing signs," Manager Ron Gardenhire said . "We scored two runs last night, we stole a lot of signs."

[...]

But Tigers catcher Gerald Laird, another prominent player in the YouTube clip, told reporters the Twins have a reputation for being masters at stealing signs.

"That's what they're known for," Laird told the Washington Post.

"That's the best they can come up with? Chrysler," Gardenhire said.

The Twins apparently were besieged with questions about the video, which means it's inevitable that Joe Mauer's neat little bit of time-honored gamesmanship will now be fashioned into a shouty morality play for the sports-talk-radio set. Chrysler, indeed.

Twins amused, offended by You Tube clip alleging Mauer stole signs [Star Tribune]
Did Joe Mauer steal signs for Jason Kubel on Tuesday night? (Update) [Star Tribune]
Joe Mauer Will Do Anything To Win, Including Cheating? [Total Pro Sports]

Lots of smart people have made the case for Mauer, and to them I'll add that, as late as Aug. 18, Mauer's batting average was higher than Teixeira's on-base percentage (and today it's still above Morales' OBP). If VORP is your thing, the distance between Mauer and Jeter is roughly the same as the distance between Jeter and Marco Scutaro, and Mauer missed all of April. He is so self-evidently the MVP, even by the discredited standards of the old school, that the fact there is even a question makes you wonder if the awards discussion is not so much a proxy war between the statheads and the deadline poets as it is an argument between people who are paying attention and those who are trying to make a tee time.

The latest entry in the genre is Allen Barra's brief on behalf of Jeter, whose resurgence is at least partly due to his playing in a stadium with the rough dimensions of a rice cooker. You can probably recite the argument by heart:

The case for Mr. Jeter as American League MVP is being made by more subjective arguments. "How do you measure the value of inspiration and professionalism?" asks Marty Appel, author of "Munson: The Life and Death of a Yankee Captain." "Some people will ­argue that intangibles don't ­exist, but in the ninth inning of close games everybody believes in them."

Thurman Munson's and Mr. Jeter's personalities were different; Munson was surly and pugnacious, while Mr. Jeter still projects the image of boyish enthusiasm he had as a rookie in 1995. But, says Mr. Appel, the two share one ­important characteristic: "They both lead by example and performance. They helped make their teams better just by being there. No one ever slacked off with either of those guys on the field." To which Mike ­Ozanian of Forbes.com adds: "Jeter has been the ­anchor on a team that could have been ­derailed by injuries to key players like Alex ­Rodriguez. Winning has to count for something."

The campaign for Teixeira was inevitable. He has driven in a fat load of runs for the team with the best record in baseball, and even reasonable people think that should count for something. (It shouldn't, but whatever.) And someone was bound to bring up Morales, undeserving or not, if only because he's put up the most surprising numbers on a team that has put up a lot of them. Jeter is another matter entirely. Barra admits as much, writing, "No one would argue that Mr. Jeter's statistics are better than those of Minnesota catcher Joe Mauer." An MVP for Jeter wouldn't be an award for performance; it'd be an honorarium for Jeter's lengthy service to the sportswriting profession as a catch-basin for all its loose ideals about hustle and leadership and sportsmanship. (It'd be cousin to the vote that put Jim Rice in the Hall of Fame not because he deserved it but because he could be turned into a living PSA about steroids.)

Baseball is full of unworthy MVPs — Jimmy Rollins and Justin Morneau come readily to mind. But at least for them, people had the better sense to make specious arguments on faulty statistical grounds rather than specious arguments on matters of character. Jeter's MVP would be a case of the mythmakers congratulating themselves on the quality of their myth, of sportswriters swallowing their own line of arrant bullshit.

The Case for Derek Jeter, MVP [Wall Street Journal]
RandBall: Jeter as AL MVP over Mauer? [Star Tribune]

• 1. Witness The Power Of This Fully Armed And Operational Joe Mauer! The Twins are closing in fast, prompting Ozzie Guillen and the White Sox to seek reinforcements. Joe Mauer hit a three-run homer to lead Minnesota to a 7-4 victory over Chicago; the Twins pulled to within two games of the second-place White Sox in the AL Central and have won 32 of their past 40. Meanwhile, the White Sox seem to be in contention to get Nationals left fielder Alfonso Soriano.

• 2. We Need A D.O., Baby! We've never been able to quite figure out why there are so many Red Sox fans in Oakland. At any rate, it seemed as if at least half of the 33,370 at the Coliseum on Monday were pulling for Boston, making David Ortiz feel right at home. Ortiz hit his 34th home run — tops in the majors — and Josh Beckett became baseball's first 13-game winner as the Red Sox prevailed 7-3.

• 3. Grrrrr! It's not often that you're going to see "Colorado Rockies" and "pitching masterpiece" in the same paragraph, so enjoy. Jeff Francis threw two-hit shutout as the Rockies beat the Cardinals 7-0.

• 4. A-Rod Strikes Back. Is Alex Rodriguez trying to tell us something? Like, he's ready to move back to Texas? Rodriguez, about as popular to New Yorkers as West Nile lately, had two hits and scored a run in the Yankees' 6-2 win over the Rangers. And, look ma, no errors!

• 5. LA, You've Been Punk'd! Could the Dodgers really be winless in extra inning games this season? In San Diego, where the people have nothing but time, they are dancing in the streets following the Padres' 7-6 win over the Dodgers.

What Joe Mauer's doing is sick. He's 23 years old. What's he going to do when he gets man muscles?

Well, until that day, Mauer "can look stylish in a black long-sleeve horizontal stripe sweater and black high twist mini herringbone flat front trouser in the spectacular El Yunque Rainforest, home to cascading waterfalls and lush foliage." Or, he can "stop for a refreshing fresh fruit drink at one of the many roadside stands in a pool long sleeve crinkled white shirt."

One can almost hear Mauer say, as Bat-girl surmised in one of the captions: "Hello, ladies. I am Johan Santana's battery mate."

America's Next Top Model [Bat-girl]
The Closer: Things Change [Deadspin]

We found the Batgirl post via commenter Dr. Kenneth Noisewater, it should be noted, which is still one of our favorite commenter names.