What to Make of the Messy Situation from MLB's Inaugural Wild Card Game

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"Caught in the middle of a beautiful disaster."

Those words were not exactly what Major League Baseball was hoping for the reaction to be of their Wild Card Games. No matter what the umpires say, no matter what MLB says, no matter what fans say, it's safe to say that this will be the reaction. The Orioles-Rangers game is currently going on without a hitch, but that doesn't matter.

The St. Louis Cardinals put up an extremely valiant effort tonight. That doesn't matter. The Atlanta Braves defense -- the best of the best throughout the season -- gaffed up multiple errors and the team itself left so many opportunities on the board.

That doesn't matter anymore.

What does matter is that from the very top, to the very bottom, the situation that deluded itself from the playing field tonight was as embarrassing as embarrassing gets. Major League Baseball umpires might not have ever looked more incompetent, and a fanbase looked extremely, extremely ugly.

The Braves were attempting to rally in the late innings, and it looked like they were on the verge of doing it. Andrelton Simmons popped a ball up into shallow left field, and Pete Kozma, inexplicably, lost the ball in the lights and on went the baserunners and the Hotlanta crowd roared. However, they, much like all the viewers at home, all the sportswriters, analysts, honchos were all blindsided when it was revealed that umpire Sam Holbrook ruled it an infield fly.

Yes. 225 feet away from the plate, umpire Sam Holbrook ruled it an infield fly.

I mean, how much more ridiculous can you get? How is that even close? Sure, it might have looked routine, but it was so far from the infield. And to make matters worse, Holbrook called it so darn late, too. 

Shameful. Egregious. Embarrassing.

And not only that, but the Atlanta crwod didn't do themselves justice either. Yes, I know that in my opinion they had every right to be mad. Come on though. They took it to another level with the bottle tossing. As shown here:

Ugly. Ridiculous. Embarrassing. 

Key words of the night, really. The Braves did themselves in with errors and poor mistakes at the plate, but that isn't the story. That will never be the story. Instead, another umpiring gaffe on a long list of gaffes will be tied to an important game.

Move over, Phil Cuzzi.

[h/t SB Nation]