Sam Donnellon: World Series shows it's about time for a timeout on all the timeouts

AMID A WORLD SERIES in which records have been threatened, tied and broken, one possible milestone slipped through unnoticed the other night.

An umpire was cheered. Heartily.

As Cliff Lee placed his glove in front of his face and began his windup to start the seventh inning of Monday's Game 5, Yankees catcher Jorge Posada raised his hand to ask for time and stepped from the batter's box. The pitch hit the strike zone, home plate umpire Dana Demuth signaled strike and the Citizens Bank Park crowd of 46,178 bellowed a lusty approval.

No one is quite sure when an umpire was last cheered in this manner in a World Series, or whether it had ever happened before at all. No one is quite sure what the World Series record for trips to the mound is either, only that it is annoyingly clear that Posada has eclipsed the single-inning mark, the single-game mark, and already must own the record for the most trips to the mound for a World Series.

And that's counting when they played nine games back in the day.

"I do believe it's a concern on the part of baseball," Fox Sports president and executive producer Ed Goren said yesterday from New York. "I've been around enough baseball people recently to know there is frustration there."

Before I go any further let me say this: Jorge Posada has every right to call as many timeouts he feels he needs to get his signals straight, settle down his pitchers, discuss strategy. Honestly, if you're a Phillies fan, don't you wish Carlos Ruiz had called time on Sunday to discuss covering third base?

Posada is playing by the rules, which is to say there is no rule that limits a catcher's trips to the mound, a second baseman's trips to the mound, even a rightfielder's trips to the mound. A manager or coach can visit the mound once an inning before he must change pitchers, but any of the nine guys on the field can ask for a timeout any time they want, as many times as they want.

In other words, Andy Reid and Donovan McNabb would love this league.

There are a whole lot of reasons for doing this, of course, which the Yankees catcher and his pitching coach are quick to point out. To calm a pitcher down. To go over signs, change them if there is even the thought that the other team is stealing them, which there allegedly is with the Phillies.

And then there is this one, offered after Sunday's game by Dave Eiland, the Yankees pitching coach.