Prior to Game 6, World Series umpires say goodbye to one of their own

HOUSTON — Early Monday morning, when the World Series left Washington D.C. for Houston, the series’ seven umpires boarded a charter flight to Iowa to bury their friend.

Eric Cooper had been a major league umpire for 24 years. They’d worked the same season-long crews with him. One had worked this year’s Minnesota-New York division series with him. They’d shared long nights on hot fields in front of edgy crowds, the hard lifestyle between those games, and the meetings at home plate to begin the next one.

Coop, as they called him, was 52. He’d died nine days before. A blood clot, believed to be a complication from knee surgery a few days prior, had quieted the laugh, had silenced the frequent encouraging text messages, and had put them on a dawn flight to Des Moines.

In Iowa, they joined some 50 other active big-league umpires, along with retired umpires and other baseball officials, including several men who tend the umpires’ rooms in ballparks. The fraternity is close.

M.L.B. Will Investigate Umpire’s Tweet About Trump Impeachment

Major League Baseball will look into a tweet sent by Rob Drake, an umpire, that mentioned the possible impeachment of President Trump, firearms and the specter of an American civil war, a spokesman said Wednesday.

Drake tweeted Tuesday “I will be buying an AR-15 tomorrow, because if you impeach MY PRESIDENT this way, YOU WILL HAVE ANOTHER CIVAL WAR!!! #MAGA2020” The tweet, which was first reported by ESPN, has since been deleted and the account was deactivated.

Drake previously had posted several other tweets supporting President Trump and criticizing the impeachment inquiry. USA Today reported that Drake’s previous tweets included a reply repeating the debunked conspiracy theory that President Barack Obama was not born in the United States. Another tweet included an expletive to call Hillary Clinton a “liar” about a lethal attack on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, in 2012. ...

MLB Umpire is prepared to shoot people in support of Donald Trump

Major League umpire Rob Drake posted and deleted a tweet late Tuesday indicating that he would be purchasing an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle on Wednesday in order to wage “CIVAL WAR” should Congress impeach peabrain president Donald Trump. Going to go out on a limb here and assume that “CIVAL” means “civil,” and that Rob Drake is fantasizing about shooting the libs.

Eric Cooper, MLB umpire for 21 years, dies at age 52

Condolences to the Cooper family

Postgame: Royals’ starter ejected, said umpire “was after me personally”

  Royals pitcher Mike Montgomery was ejected for arguing about balls and strikes on Friday, crew chief Sam Holbrook said. But Montgomery would take exception to that — it wasn’t the calls that made him mad, it was home plate umpire Manny Gonzalez’s intent.

  “I felt like he was after me personally, and the team,” Montgomery said after a fifth-inning argument with Gonzalez wound up costing him his first career ejection. “He had a bad day. What really just [made me mad] was, he was intentionally trying to screw me over.”

  Montgomery, a five-year veteran who was traded from the Cubs to Kansas City in July, had been complaining about Gonzalez’s strike zone for much of the game, but it boiled over when Mitch Garver led off the fifth inning with a home run. Gonzalez called a couple of low curveballs that might have nicked the strike zone balls, and Garver eventually worked the count to 3-2 by fouling off a fastball. He was was lying in wait for the next one.

  “He threw me a fastball, and I was extremely late. I think that kind of played into my hand,” Garver said. “So then I was sitting dead red, right down the middle, and got it.”

So, if we do go to robot umpires, how long before the pitchers start getting paranoid about them too?

I was a bird-flipping Little League menace—and it’s time to come clean

Fun story about a guy wanting to apologize to an umpire decades later for his behavior as a little league player

The Pursuit of the Elusive Umpire Perfect Game - The Ringer

This is good stuff.