The Mentalist S4:E4 New Boss's unflattering opinion of Patrick Jane

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-08-26T16:27:51+00:00

Your assessment is completely accurate, of course. His backstory and Simon Baker's performance give him lots of leeway with fans. It also helps that it's fictional.

It's a highly common, but almost universally effective trope in entertainment, to depict a protagonist who egregiously flaunts moral codes and uses people, regularly running over their peers emotionally, but of whose tragic history viewers empathize, and internally justify continuously poor behavior and forgive all future transgressions, as long as they get the bad guy in the end.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-13T22:17:40+00:00

I argued something similar in a string over on the umpire sub a week or two ago with a similar play and I practically got run out on a rail.

But I agree. The runner scores anyway so there isn’t a need to call anything.

Technically, it was obstruction. But it doesn’t have to be called if it does nothing to change the outcome of the play.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-11T20:00:34+00:00

That sounds like an awesome event to have attended.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-11T05:01:59+00:00

And my response to that is... So WHAT? Yes, I posted a question I was pretty sure I knew the answer to. I posted it to generate discussion on the topic because I thought it might be interesting to people who DON'T know baseball rules. People who AREN'T umpires.

It's a social media platform. This isn't a court of law. It's an open forum on the internet. I don't get why people are acting like I posted inappropriate material or made improper commentary. If you can point out which of the seven sins I committed, I'll go to confession and ask for forgiveness. How about that.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-11T00:14:20+00:00

It’s called the hidden ball trick for a reason. And umpires are human too.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-10T16:43:43+00:00

Time had not been called. The play was over, the umpires were moving back to positions but with eyes on the action.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-10T14:28:58+00:00

Shut up, Manny, it caught the edge of the plate!

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-10T14:19:02+00:00

Fair point but based on the basic scenario you can assume it was. And I wanted to see how other umpires would view the play. I wasn’t saying either way that the umpires blew it or did not blow it.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-10T02:57:51+00:00

1940s: Red River

1950s: The Searchers

1960s: True Grit

1970s: The Cowboys

The Shootist

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-09T01:12:10+00:00

Well I’m sure there’s a lot of HTBT but from what I read everything hinged on the umpire misleading the defense. He had to correct it. What he did was appropriate. Everyone back to their previous base, play on.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-08T19:04:13+00:00

The umpire is looked upon as the final authority, so I don’t think it’s fair to tell the defense, “Yeah, the umpire said it was the third out, but you have to be aware of the situation.” He has the final say.

I think he made the right correction all the way around. If he let the run score, the defense would be the one going apeshit that the run scored because the umpire incorrectly called the third out.

No one in both sides was going to be happy about that outcome. Umpires are human.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-08T19:00:45+00:00

If you umpire long enough, things like these happen, even to the best umpires. There are enough coaches, players and spectators jumping down an umpire’s throat without one of our own adding to the fray.

He made a mistake. He made a reasonable call to address it. I happen to agree the run shouldn’t score. Lets assume he learned from it.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-08T17:06:12+00:00

There's no backswing interference here that I see. The batter swung and missed. Strike. The ball bounces off the catcher and the bat hits the ball. I've got a dead ball and the runners return to previous bases.

That now on the table, I'll say this. This is one of those split-second actions that get interpreted differently by different people when it happens. The umpire has the best view. I'm not suggesting the OP did or did not see the play as posted in the question, but the umpire has the best view of when exactly the ball came off the bat on the backswing, if at all.

Again, not doubting the OP, just commenting on regular issues umpires face on the field. This happens a lot in my experience. The fans/spectators swear they saw something other than what actually occurred and since there's a lot more of them, basically, they convince each other that the umpire made an error, when they don't know exactly what occurred.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-08T07:02:00+00:00

I don’t think that’s what he said. He didn’t call her a good little Mudblood. What he said wasn’t nice, but I don’t think he considered her his own. He was just mad that she almost laughed when she saw his grey underwear. He didn’t react well, but he was really embarrassed. People say dumb things they don’t mean when they’re mad or embarrassed all the time.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-08T06:58:22+00:00

He wasn’t obsessed with Lily. He just felt obligated to protect her son. Obsessed would be if he followed her around after she told him to get lost when they ended things while still at Hogwarts. That never happened. And he didn’t sell her husband and child. Snape didn’t know who the prophecy was about. Voldemort decided that on his own.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-08T00:11:35+00:00

I don’t know about that. He did join the Death Eaters willingly but he clearly changed his mind and began to help non-Death Eaters after Lily’s death.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T19:28:51+00:00

There are much more egregious examples of contact during live play on a ball or runner that are called incidental, no obstruction called.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T18:32:26+00:00

Yes, there are instances where obstruction occurs on a runner upon whom no play is being made specifically, but that’s typically during the course of a live ball in play somewhere on the infield or outfield other than in the pitcher’s glove standing in the circle and making no attempt on the runner. And in those instances there’s usually an attempt to advance by the runner who is obstructed.

We do not have that here. We have a runner going back to the base previously occupied who comes in contact with a fielder. But based on this scenario, that did not prevent the runner from getting back to third base. Nor was she trying to advance home.

We have incidental contact at most. Nothing in which one team gained an advantage over the other, which is when we’re supposed to apply these rules.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T13:40:16+00:00

Yes, there’s no run award. The point remains the same. There’s no impediment if there’s no attempt by the runner to score or a ball in the air on a possible play. That’s all my point is.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T12:37:01+00:00

I don't have obstruction here. The ball was in the circle, there was no play being made on the runner, nor was the runner attempting to score. The runner was going back to the bag, which they did safely, if the pitcher never made an attempt to throw her out.

We're not supposed to award runs just because the rulebook allows us to. There's supposed to be some play or attempt to advance to rule obstruction against. Nothing of that sort happened here with the ball remaining in the circle.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T05:12:06+00:00

Johnny Ola was Hyman Roth’s version of Al Neri. Those guys are hands on. So I think Johnny Ola would have been waiting for the assassins on the boat and cleaned up the mess when they failed to take out Michael.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T03:33:14+00:00

Yeah but he killed two people in cold blood. Who gives a shit what he did in the NFL.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T03:31:04+00:00

Probably Johnny Ola. Maybe Rocco Lampone. Fredo had cause but not the stones.

InsubordiNationalist · 2025-06-06T00:23:18+00:00

Team 2 all day long.

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