MLB's Refusal to Let Umpires Speak for Themselves Makes Game Look Bad

Filed under: Twins, Yankees, MLB Umpires, American League Division Series

ARLINGTON, Texas -- If you were expecting to read umpire Hunter Wendelstedt's spirited defense of his non-strike call against Twins' pitcher Carl Pavano in Game 2 of the American League Division Series between Minnesota and New York, you shouldn't have been.

Major League Baseball goes out of its way to make sure that umpires are shielded from frivolities such as explaining their actions.

It would have taken five minutes, probably less, for Wendelstedt to explain his ball call -- as opposed to the strike that most everyone else saw. You might not agree with him, but then he could have pulled a Jim Joyce, done a mea culpa, apologized for blowing a call, and baseball would have moved on.

Baseball, as it happens, doesn't want to move on. It wants its umpires not so much as held to a higher standard as to be held to no standard at all - at least not outside MLB's corporate offices in New York City. Umpires are graded and critiqued internally, but those ratings never seem to make it out of the building.

 

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