Blowhard Umpiring on Sunday Night Baseball

A nationally televised prime time interleague game between the Yankees and the Dodgers in Los Angeles, fans expect to see the historic World Series rivals engage in an all out hard hitting, slick fielding, well pitched professional baseball at its best. Going into the late innings, the Dodgers appeared to have all well in hand, but the Yankees were on the comeback erasing a 6-2 lead tying the game in the top of the 9th. Dodgers manager, former Yank’s skipper, Joe Torre had aligned the team for defense replacing Manny Ramirez with the more mobile and capable, Garrett Anderson in left field. Coming up to bat with the game on the line or facing extra innings, Garrett Anderson was called out on strikes. There was no visible sign of him taunting the umpire, but umpire Chris Guccione ran him out of the game. In the bottom of the 10th down two runs, the tying run at the plate, catcher Russell Martin was called out on strikes, slammed his bat down in frustration, and was ejected from the game by Guccione.

Fans don’t pay good money to see umpires umpire. Umpires do their job by being quiet, showing patience, and being largely invisible. A well umpired game is one where the umpires appear all but unnoticed. While there are definitely limits players should not exceed in their on-the-field behavior toward umpires, running players out of the game in situations such as what existed in this game cannot be justified.

Naturally, cynics and Yankee haters will argue that the Yankees own the umpires. It would be hard to say anything favorable of the umpire’s behavior in this game. Guccione’s behavior probably did not influence the outcome of this game, but surely could have. That would have been most unfortunate.

Take a bow Mr. Guccione. You got your two minutes of fame on ESPN Sunday Night Baseball.