Joe West is not the average baseball fan's favorite umpire. I doubt the above video will change that.
As Federal Baseball explains:
Ian Desmond lines to left, and it drops in, Hammer scores!! 3-2 Nats. Wil Nieves gets a sac bunt down, Bernadina to third, Desmond to second. Willie Harris flies to short center, Bernadina scores, the throw gets by home and the Reds' pitcher Rosario fields and fires to third, too late to get Desmond, but the Nats' SS's foot comes off the bag and he's tagged by Scott Rolen. From the other side of the field, First Base Ump "Country" Joe West reverses the call after a huddle by the Umps. (ed. note - "It was the right call.") Desmond's tossed for tossing his helmet, Nats' third base coach Pat Listach is furious, and the Nats are up 4-2.
That's not bad in principle. The right call apparently got made. But making it from 180 feet away and then tossing Desmond for a couple of words is the sort of self-aggrandizing, overreactive stuff that gets even the less enlightened calling you a fossil.
SB Nation's Jon Bois compiles a list of possible insults for West, who is quickly becoming Public Enemy No. 1 for the "Umps are awful, we need robots" crowd. (Remember, he was fined this year for his part in a balk-filled game in Chicago.) I like "miscreant," but I suspect he'll hear others on the list more often.
(HTs: SB Nation and Federal Baseball.)
This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.
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