The AL-Only Blog

I had intended to write my return blog about the umpires in baseball but first I must address the absolute nonsense that was shot my way regarding Scutaro being compared to Royce Clayton. Without wasting time Scutaro was a fill in because Josh Fields was sent to the minors. We have two more teams this year and that means less available players on the free agent list. I was out of the country so making a trade wasn’t exactly gonna happen. Clayton was picked as his starting SS AT THE AUCTION. This is a far cry from comparing apples and apples. Clayton is a piece of crap and I will stand by that. I never claimed Scutaro was great but he was a fill in.

OK enough on that.

I don’t understand for the life of me what sort of culture has been created in baseball that doesn’t exist in any other major sport where officials are almost encouraged to enrage players. The Milton Bradley incident is the most glaring example that I can think of but if you watch enough baseball you will inevitably see an official (normally the 1st base umpire) jawing at the runner on first. Many times you will see the player trying to ignore this but the ump keeps going. How on earth is this acceptable? If you see a player yelling at a ref in hockey long enough he’ll get a misconduct but you’ll never have the ref yell back at the player. Same in football. Admittedly coaches do seem to get away with murder on the sidelines yelling at refs in football but I’ve never seen the refs engage the coaches and get nasty themselves. Hockey coaches also do their fair share of yelling but never do the refs yell back.

The umpire’s role is to enforce the rules of the game. Simple. If a player yells at the ump and crosses the line then deal with it. Don’t engage in conversation. Here is a link for the Bradley incident where the first base coach says he’s never heard anything like it from a manager. What prompted this was watching the Jays game against Tampa the other day. Rios was up with two men on base and two outs. The Jays were in the midst of a losing streak and Rios as the best hitter was clearly putting pressure on himself to come through. Rios tried to check his swing which the first base umpire decided he didn’t and rung him up. Rios threw his bat and helmet on the ground and swore at himself. Never did he even look in the direction of the first base umpire. Well he tossed him anyway. This was in the third inning I believe, so he took the best hitter out of their lineup in the beginning of the game in the midst of a losing streak when absolutely nothing was directed at him. Wouldn’t any professional athlete be pissed on a call like that? He didn’t tell the ump her Mom was a cow or that he banged his wife. No, he threw his bat and helmet to the ground in front of him.

Umpires need to call the game and leave it at that. This does go back to the players as well though as they seem to feel that they can chirp at the umps and actually engage in this form of idiotic banter. Both sides need to leave it alone and do their jobs on the field. If a call is questionable then argue it but don’t be a jackass.