04/26/24
May 30, 2002
Rangers shortshop Alex Rodriguez was thrown out of Wednesday night's game for giving umpire Greg Gibson an "intimidating look" as he ran off the field. Is there a pro sport that gives its on-field officials more power to be stupid than Major League Baseball?
They showed the same thing a few weeks ago on HBO's Real Sports with Rasheed Wallace, who got teed and tossed for giving the ref no more than a "what tha f$%k" look (granted, 'Sheed had gotten teed earlier in the game)... The irony is that NFL refs are probably the ones most professional in this regard and they're the ones who work part-time.
posted by jackhererra at 09:25 AM on May 30, 2002
I don't understand why baseball would let an umpire behave this way today, especially when he's tossing one of the marquee players who fills the seats. Before the umps union was kneecapped a few years ago, there seemed to be some protection for the prima donna ump. They should reprimand Gibson as a lesson to the other umps who need to get over themselves.
posted by rcade at 09:42 AM on May 30, 2002
Obviously, refs respond to players with a reputation, for whatever reason. It's way too personal. If Rasheed Walace blinks wrong at the refs, he's risking a T. The problem is not unique to baseball, each sport has its own way of dealing with referee - player and referee - coach relationships, and I've seen some pretty ridiculous bench minors handed out in hockey, and some insane technical fouls given in basketball. Every sport has this problem, and there is really no easy solution, in my opinion. The problem with baseball, is that there is no middle ground. In basketball, the first technical foul is like a minor penalty which also serves as a warning (along with the flagrant foul). It takes two to get kicked out, people get a second chance. In hockey, a bench minor is only a 2 minute penalty. Players can get a 2 minute minor, a double minor (4 minutes, for slashing and drawing blood), a 5 minute major, or a 10 minute penalty and game misconduct (ejection included). If A-Rod had done what he did to the ref on the ice, he might have gotten a verbal warning if anything, and I can't imagine anything more than a bench minor being assigned to his team for protesting. In baseball, it's a zero sum game, there is no middle ground, so I imagine players and managers will go into an argument full-bore because they know they'll be kicked out anyway. The problem is, for an ump, if a player does something that he thinks is out of line, his only recourse is ejection. Maybe he wanted to send a message to A-Rod, unfortunately, he doesn't have a punishment to give out which is proportional to the offense.
posted by insomnyuk at 09:42 AM on May 30, 2002
when I saw it on ESPN no alarms sounde in my head, but I wasn't fully paying attention, and I guess maybe I thought he was kicked for the argument that he had (Which turned out to happen after the ejection). Tossing for a look is wrong... it wasn't even like it was over-exaggerated that he turned around to glare, as if he was showing him up. A more amusing ejection was Pinella's, after he had a perfectly valid point about the strike zone and then buried the plate since the guy (Shulock?) wasn't using it anyway. I hate the M's, but Lou rules. I can't believe WIlson actually cleaned the plate up though, if an ump made me do that, esp in the later innings, it would totally be worth the ejection to agree with the manager and tell him to shove it. Did anyone else find it odd that that was the 2nd grand slam of the night that came after a questionable non-call on strike 3?
posted by Bernreuther at 01:33 PM on May 30, 2002
Blimey, and I thought that yellow card a player got in the Uefa cup final for smiling at the ref was odd..
posted by Mossy at 06:36 PM on May 30, 2002
insomnyuk has a point; while there isn't a first technical in baseball, perhaps there should be. Or perhaps the umpire's should be thinking like there is- outside of extreme behavior (spitting on or otherwise assaulting an ump), the player/manager should be warned unless they continue to make a federal case out of it. The good umps usually let a manager vent, so long as he doesn't go nuts, and get it out of his system for the rest of the game instead of tossing him immediately. A bad manager throws a player out for a "look". :) Lou's ejection is a perfect case, actually- he was ejected, but he had to work for it. And Lou had a point- the stupid Tampa Bay staff actually replayed those pitches on the jumbotron, for all the stadium to see. It was then that Lou went into a tirade, but the unwritten (or is it written?) rule is that controversial plays and calls are not supposed to be shown in-stadium. In both Lou and A-Rod's cases, the umpire appeared to be wrong on the call, but in Lou's case- despite, or perhaps because of, a longstanding reputation as a fiery combatant- he got latitude before getting tossed. I also agree Wilson should not have cleaned the plate, and it seems the "right" thing to do is quietly refuse, instead of being the peacemaker and doing it yourself. That is the umpire's job, and the umpire should have cleaned it no matter how it got messed up or what had just happened- that aloof dispassionate attitude I talked about earlier. Another example of the prima donna ump rearing its ugly head...
posted by hincandenza at 06:53 PM on May 30, 2002
This is absurd!! He's been thrown out a couple of times lately, and for idiotic reasons. One was him stumbling as he got up from a slide and bumping the umpire, a questionable one at best but one can at least say that technically, he bumped the umpire. But this... this is stupidity. ESPN showed that play on Tuesday, and the umpire was shown to be wrong on the replays. It adds insult to injury that he then threw out Rodriguez for merely "looking" at him in an intimidating way. The umpires have to be much thicker-skinned than this: seeming above the fray, impersonal and aloof, is what gives them credibility as impartial arbiters of the rules of the game. It's when they show personal emotion or involvement or hyper-sensitivity that their ability to umpire begins to be called into question on every call. The classic example of a good umpire is one who stands there like a stone statue while an old school Lou Piniella type rants and raves an inch from their face; a good amount of slack is given before the umpire finally tosses the manager. There should be disciplinary action on the umpire, but of course there won't be. I hope Rodriguez and the Player's Union file some kind of grievance, because it almost seems some umpires have a chip on their shoulder against Alex. It's too bad, because this is a problem that flares up every few years; the umpires begin to act like they're bigger than the game, or show a certain dictatorial fiat about their decisions. Last time, we saw a mass of umpires laid off and the umpires consolidated into one office instead of for each league.