Pop quiz: Name an AL right fielder not named Nick Swisher or J.D. Drew. I’ll give you five seconds. Ready…go!
Any luck? Perhaps, if you hail from the Baltimore area like myself, you came up with the name Nick Markakis. As the starting right fielder for a team that currently sits 35 games out of first place (but that had the second-best record in baseball during the month of August, I might add), Markakis doesn’t get a lot of attention from the national media. You probably didn’t know, for example, that he’s one of only four players in baseball history to hit 40 doubles in four consecutive seasons. And you were almost certainly ignorant of the fact that entering his 747th career game on August 20, Mr. Markakis had never once been ejected from a game. But that all changed in the blink of an eye, thanks to the selfish and indefensible actions of umpire Jeff Nelson—as well as a flawed system that gives umpires carte blanche to act as they please with no fear of repercussion.
Here’s the scene. Markakis, having struck out twice already, stepped in against Texas Rangers starter C.J. Wilson in the sixth. Wilson’s first pitch was low for ball one, but his second—low and several inches off the plate, according to brooksbaseball.com’s PitchFX tool—was called strike one by Nelson. Wilson’s third pitch—in almost the exact same location as his first—was called strike two, prompting Markakis to exchange words with Nelson. Nelson then rang up Markakis on a Wilson pitch six inches off the plate (according to PitchFX) and then immediately ejected Markakis when he protested the call.
Now, umpires are human, and humans aren’t perfect. Sometimes they miss a pitch, and arguing balls and strikes is virtually guaranteed to earn an ejection. But it’s one thing to legitimately miss a pitch or blow a call. It’s another entirely to let your ego get the better of you and “send a message” to a player with an indefensible call. And yet such occurrences are not uncommon in baseball, since, in contrast to the rules for uniformed personnel, there is no accountability for umpires within Major League Baseball’s organizational hierarchy.
Let’s take another example. In August 2002, the Los Angeles Dodgers led the Cincinnati Reds 4-0 in the bottom of the ninth in Cincinnati. Dodgers closer Eric Gagne began the inning by allowing a single and a home run that halved the Dodgers’ lead, then hit the next batter, Adam Dunn. Plate umpire Dan Iassogna immediately ejected Gagne, obviously believing Gagne had plunked Dunn in retaliation. Sounds legit, right?
Look at the previous paragraph again. There were no outs in the ninth inning of a 4-2 game. Now, is it a smart idea to intentionally bring the potential tying run to the plate with no outs in the ninth inning? That’s what I thought. A livid Gagne argued with and eventually made contact with Iassogna but was not suspended, as the commissioner’s office reprimanded Iassogna for his “bad baseball instincts” (for the record, the Reds went on to tie the game and eventually won in the 13th).
And yet that’s it. A slap on the wrist and nothing more for a blown call that almost unquestionably changed the outcome of the game. What if that had happened in the playoffs? Oh, wait, it has happened in the playoffs. On the grandest of stages, in fact. No, I’m not talking about the World Series. I’m talking about the World Cup.
Everyone reading this probably knows that I’m referring to here. Pick your poison: Was the phantom foul that disallowed Maurice Edu’s goal against Slovenia and denied the Americans a 3-2 win—after falling behind 2-0—the most egregious officiating moment of the tournament? Or was it English midfielder Frank Lampard’s goal-but-not-a-goal against Germany that would have tied the match (an eventual 4-1 German victory) at 2-2? Or perhaps the goal by offside Argentina striker Carlos Tevez against Mexico?
The combination of these calls ultimately led to an international uproar. (When the rest of the world agrees that the U.S. got hosed, you know it must have been a bad call.) And yet soccer officials enjoy even greater protection than their counterparts on the diamond—in fact, the world is still waiting to find out which U.S. player committed the foul that nullified Edu’s strike.
So what can be done about this? Here’s an idea: Make the officials face the music. If an umpire consistently misses bang-bang calls at first base, remove him from the major-league rotation and provide him with additional training until his accuracy improves. If he lets a personal vendetta against a player interfere with the way he calls a game, suspend him for a series or two to make it known that such behavior will not be tolerated.
Former Boston Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling has said that MLB umpire Joe West “often times acts like he’d rather be any place in the world other than the field.” In April, after West called the slow pace of a recently completed Red Sox-Yankees series “pathetic and embarrassing,” he was “admonished firmly” by the commissioner’s office but faced no other discipline.
It’s time to stop letting officials get away with this. The next time West rants to the media, Jeff Nelson goes on an ego-fueled power trip, or Koman Coulibaly calls a foul on no one in particular, grant their wishes and send them any place in the world other than the field.
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