Ok so I write this post as I watch the Jays game on Friday and I just gotta say WOW at the home plate umpire Dan Bellino. Now I've read a couple articles on umpires, and not just how they are crap at getting calls but how they have just a bad situation all together, their travel timeline is hellish at best, the good umps generally go unthanked, etc. Now even though you take that into account you can't bring that onto the field, at any job out there you can't just let what happened during the day get the best of you and get overly emotional because of it. Basically what I'm saying is that yes, umps do have it rough in terms of getting from game to game, but is it an excuse for making terrible calls? Not really, now I do understand that close calls may be a bit more understandable because a lack of sleep and getting to the field with barely any time to spare would do that to anybody but some of the recent calls have been so blatantly obvious that everyone in the stadium knows what the right call was expect the ump.
So obviously the reason I'm writing this post is because Brett Lawrie got thrown out of the game in the 3rd inning, the argument of course was over the last 2 pitches being strikes instead of balls. Now I watch these games on MLB.TV and for the most part they have a pitch tracker on the screen during every at bat and I could see the first questionable pitch was a ball above the zone, though I'm willing to give that to the ump because Wieters is good at framing pitches and easily brought it down a few inches. Though that second pitch was nearly in the dirt so calling it a strike was ridiculous, but the worst of it was that he threw out Lawrie for throwing his gloves and helmet. I of course know that umpires are supposed to show a bit of discretion in terms of players reactions to their calls but that was just ridiculous because he blew an obvious call and Lawrie didn't exchange words with him, which in some cases haven't gotten players thrown out. It honestly seems to me like umpires are just getting worse and worse thinking their the centre of the damn universe on the field, even more reason why we need to increase replay or just get a different system into the game other than umpires. I mean MLB even came out and said that umpires generally miss 20% of calls, now I don't think umpires or referees in any other high end American sport miss that high percentage of calls and this year has been a lot worse than what I'm used to seeing last year I was used to seeing a couple blown close calls a week or so but now its become common place to see them once or twice a game. And of course this is not including missed strike/ball calls (which have been coming in in droves).
But thats not everything we've had some down right stupidity from umpires in the league this year, for instance the blown home run call by Angel Hernandez in Cleveland, what should have been a game winning home run for the A's ended up being a ground rule double. I watched that game and even the announcers said when the umpiring crew went to review it 'oh it's a home run' and then when they umps came back out and made the call everyone in the stadium was stunned because of the ridiculous of the call. Now this isn't the end, we also had that switch by the Astros manager, so lets set the stage here. Its the Angels vs. the Astros and the Astros manager Bo Porter made a switch for a new reliever, in kind Mike Scioscia player the match ups and made a switch for a pinch hitter....then Bo Porter made another pitcher change. Now for this you need to understand that in the official rules a pitcher MUST face at least one batter before he can be taken out (of course to avoid a consistent switching between managers). So Scioscia came out and called to the umpires who allowed it, which isn't just terrible because they blew an obvious call but because they don't know the rules that their supposed to be enforcing!
So there are those big ones during this year (and yes there have been others, just not as of as large significance) but in addition to this there have been over reactions by umpires as well which were ridiculous. Aside from tonights example in the Jays game is the bit with David Price of the Rays and the umpire Tom Hallion, now in this situation the umpire made some questionable calls and after Price finished the inning I guess he walked off looking a bit perturbed (he didn't look pissed to me) and as a result Tom Hallion went over and yelled at him as he entered the dug out. Now the matter is still under review but Price claimed that Hallion told him to 'throw the fucking ball over the plate', this of course is completely uncalled for as Price did nothing wrong. After this exchange Jeremy Hellickson and Matt Moore both shouted a bit at the umpire because they thought what he did was uncalled for, and what does Hallion do? He throws Hellickson out of the game. Over reaction, I certainly think so. Though this wasn't the end of it because after the game Price told reporters what happened, and when confronted by the same reporters Hallion told them that he did not say that and that Price is a liar, and there you go Hallion makes one mistake by swearing at a player for no good reason they he goes off and questions their character. From there the whole thing picked up steam with Hellickson, Moore and Price all posting on twitter what they thought of the situation and as a result both Price and Hallion were fined and Hallion could very well be suspended or fired for his actions if the investigation into the matter comes back negative for him.
All in all it seems that more and more of these incidents are creeping up and it needs to be fixed ASAP, umpires are starting to think that they own the game and they are the most important person on the field. Now I don't know enough about the inner workings of the umpiring system in the MLB to suggest improvements however I recommend that anyone interested in this take a look at this article by Jayson Stark that outlines 8 ways that umpiring can be improved in the MLB and I agree with every suggestion he has made.
-Eric
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