Team Batgirl was interested in Brad Radke's contention in today's Strib that the home plate umpire, Gerry Davis, was squeezing him:

What whittled Radke's composure down to the nub was that he believed he pitched much better than his line -- seven innings, four earned runs, no walks and three strikeouts -- showed.

In one of the shortest, and angriest, interview sessions of his career, Radke disputed ball-strike calls by home plate umpire Gerry Davis, and also said it's not the first time Davis has made controversial decisions against the Twins.

"I thought I pitched the ball pretty good," Radke said. "Sometimes it's pretty hard to throw when there's no strike zone. The guy [Davis] should turn the page from last year. You can print that. I don't care."

Radke alluded to a four-game series in September in Chicago, during which Davis was in the middle of questionable decisions. Davis ejected manager Ron Gardenhire in the first game of the series Sept. 8.

Now, Batgirl is generally not in favor of blaming umpires--who are, after all, human beings, with hopes and dreams and good days and bad days, just like the rest of us only with more padding. But she does distinctly recall the Twins getting totally hosed in that critical series in Chicago last September by a series of calls that were "questionable" (in the way that Napoleon's decision to go into Russia was "questionable." )

Batgirl's intern unearthed a PiPress article from last year about the umpiral scorched earth tactics of that series:

Gerry Davis[ is] the umpire who spent four days in Chicago during the key Twins-White Sox series trying to manage the Twins' dugout then making such obviously poor calls in successive games that it began to look personal by the end of the series.

He worked home plate in the first game of that series, a Twins' loss, and wound up ejecting Twins manager Ron Gardenhire after a sequence of events that began with a close call on a fourth-inning shot by Cristian Guzman down the first base line that was ruled foul. Davis told players in the Twins dugout after that play to calm down, in particular Jacque Jones, who jumped in frustration at the call.

Guzman followed with an inning-ending grounder, and as a few players looked at replays on a TV monitor set up by a camera crew near their dugout, the umpires again got involved in the dugout and ordered the players away from the monitor. "They were more concerned with our dugout than what was happening out on the field,'' Gardenhire said after the game.

The next night, while umpiring third base, Davis called out Corey Koskie at third when Koskie tried to advance from second on a tapper in front of the plate. If there had been a force on the play, it would have been close, but there wasn't, and Koskie beat the tag by a wide margin. The out call cost the Twins at least one run in a two-run loss.

Davis called Doug Mientkiewicz out at second the next night on a questionable call on a pickoff throw by the catcher. And in the final game of the series, while umpiring at first base, he called Chicago catcher Miguel Olivo safe on a bunt single in perhaps the worst call of the series, with pitcher Brad Radke's throw beating Olivo by almost a step.

In fact, Gerry Davis is responsible for at least two of Gardenhire's ejections in 2003, starting on the April 30th game against Tampa Bay, in which our beloved manager was thrown out in the first inning for questioning one of Davis's calls. (Replays showed Davis had blown the call). Acting Manager Scotty Ullger was also ejected automatically after Radke hit a batter, making Speaker of the House Denny Hastert, under the succession act, the Twins manager for the rest of the game.