Joe West, the umpire everybody loves to have an opinion about, has been suspended three games for calling Adrian Beltre a complainer during an interview with USA Today’s Bob Nightengale all the way back in June. The Los Angeles Times’ Bill Shaikin first reported the news.
The full exchange involved West having to decide who the biggest complainer in the league is and replying,
It’s got to be Adrian Beltre. Every pitch you call that’s a strike, he says, “Whoa! Whoa! Whoa!” I had a game with him recently and the pitch was right down the middle. He tells me, “that ball is outside.”
I told him, “You may be a great ballplayer, but you’re the worst umpire in the league. You stink.”
Interestingly, and in a departure from how suspensions work for players or managers, West’s comments were made weeks ago but a suspension was handed down only last week. The three game suspension started with Tuesday’s games.
You have no choice. If you don’t greet him before your first plate appearance, West will hold up the game. He is the only umpire who does this, but so what? He is the only umpire who does a lot of things, like moonlight as a country-music singer, which has made him the only umpire with three nicknames: Country Joe, Cowboy Joe and the Blue Cowboy. He has a website, umpirejoewest.com, where he sells umpiring equipment, including a chest protector he invented, the WestVest. There is a reason Royals reliever Peter Moylan splits the umpiring profession into two groups: “There’s umpires, and there’s Joe West.”
Other umpires work games; West controls them. He is the only umpire who stands between managers and other umpires on his crew, effectively ending arguments before they begin. Arguing with West directly is just as futile. When Ron Gardenhire managed the Twins, he went to dispute a call, and West warned him, “Don’t step in my dirt.” He meant the dirt around home plate. Gardenhire put one foot on it and was ejected before he opened his mouth.
MLB umpire Angel Hernandez has filed a lawsuit against the league and commissioner Rob Manfred alleging the league discriminates against minority umpires, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
Hernandez’s suit claims that MLB is biased against minority umps when it comes to high-profile positions. There has only been one minority crew chief in league history and only one minority umpire has worked the World Series since 2011.
“The selection of these less qualified, white individuals over Hernandez was motivated by racial, national origin and/or ethnic considerations,” the suit reads, according to the Enquirer.
As a Major League Baseball umpire, John Tumpane often has to diffuse tense situations at the ballpark.
None compared to the scene he came upon Wednesday as he walked across the Roberto Clemente Bridge around 3 p.m. on his way back from a run and lunch: A few hundred yards from PNC Park, he saw a woman climb over a railing and look toward the Allegheny River below.
Country Joe West, who has produced two country music albums, appeared in the Grand Ole Opry and The Naked Gun, and developed and patented his own chest protector, has out-lived them all.
His tenure has spanned six commissioners, 21 World Series champions, 151 umpires and 55 Hall of Fame players. The game Tuesday between the Colorado Rockies and Arizona Diamondbacks pits two franchises that didn’t exist when he began his career.
The impressions he left were often indelible.
“Joe was infamous, or famous for testing out a pitcher early in the game,’’ says Hall of Fame pitcher John Smoltz. “He would call a ball that was a strike to see if you were relaxed, or cool with it, to see how you’d react.
“Well, I learned something way too late. When I was with Boston, I decided I’m going to find out what song Joe wants to hear when I come to the mound. They gave me some obscure, sentimental song, and there’s Joe behind home plate, tapping his feet, and singing to the song.”
But Tuesday, Murphy’s ability to play defense diminished greatly when umpire Alan Porter stood in his line of sight early in the game.
Porter did not respond well to a request from Murphy, barking at the player, who appeared to try to reason with him. When the conversation was over, and Murphy could no longer see what Porter was saying, cameras caught the umpire muttering expletives at Murphy.
Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Palermo made his debut as an American League umpire in 1976 and was a full-time ump from ‘77-91.
During the summer of 1991, Palermo and another man were shot while trying to help two waitresses who were being robbed outside a Dallas restaurant. He was left partially paralyzed. But through intense and painful therapy, Palermo was able to walk again with the help of a cane.
Palermo was hired in 1994 as a special assistant to the chairman of the Major League Executive Council. In 2000, he became an umpire supervisor for MLB, serving as a liaison between Major League umpires and the Office of the Commissioner.
From that point on, Palermo became a fixture in the Kauffman Stadium press box.
Want to hear exactly how disputed calls get decided, like that one in last year’s NL Championship Series?
Soon, we might.
While nothing is set, Major League Baseball and umps are expected to discuss a plan — most prominently used in the NFL — for crew chiefs to wear a microphone and explain replay rulings.
Under one possible scenario, they would start at the All-Star Game on July 11 in Miami, tweak the process over the season’s second half and then go forward with the experiment in the playoffs.
People familiar with the talks spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because an agreement has not yet been reached.
Last year, MLB asked for the plate ump to wear a mic at the All-Star Game, but there wasn’t enough time to do it.
The umpires are in the middle of their five-year labor deal and any change would involve negotiations, plus a comfort level on both sides that the system would be efficient, accurate and easy.
It was during one of those chats with a veteran umpire earlier this spring that Trout offered a thought: As the experienced umpires work their way back into game shape in spring training, just as the players do, why not have them work five or six innings and turn over the last innings to umpires who would normally work minor league games on back fields?
The idea is simple, but has a lot of helpful layers, beyond allowing an older plate umpire a little more time to work into condition in spring to see 350 or so pitches in a given game. It is extraordinarily difficult for young umpires to advance in the industry because there is little annual turnover among umpires in the big leagues. For a young umpire slated for Class A or AA to get a few innings in a major league exhibition—with the packed ballpark and major league players—would be something of a reward, as it is for the minor league players.
