This week, the Major League Umpires Association, led by chief counsel Richie Phillips, announced they will all resign on September 2 and not work the final 4 1/2 weeks of the season. What's the problem? The Big Boys in Blue are pissed off about the suspension of one of their own, Tom Hallion, earlier this month for bumping Colorado Rockies catcher Jeff Reed. You might be wondering, "So what?" Players get suspended for bumping umpires, don't they? Yes, but the umpires are still acting like three-year-olds about the three-year-old incident where Roberto Alomar spit in an umpire's face and only got a five game suspension. And that's not all the disrespect these poor umpires have had to endure! A players' ratings list of individual umpires was made public last year, making the ones at the bottom feel bad. Then, this spring, baseball ordered umpires to call the strike zone higher. How can anyone work under those conditions?
The umps obviously thought that their resignation threat would cause baseball's owners, players and fans to come crawling on their knees, begging them to put their chest protectors back on for the good of the game. Instead, the collective reaction has been along the lines of "Don't let the stadium doors hit you on your Goliath-sized ass when you leave, Chunky!"
Sandy Alderson, executive vice president of baseball operations said,
"This is either a threat to be ignored, or an offer to be accepted." When
umpire Paul Nauert blew a call that cost the Chicago White Sox a game against
St. Louis, pitcher Mike Sirotka said, "It's painfully obvious that guy
can't retire soon
enough.'' And fans in New York, Texas and Oakland booed the umpires
when they took the field after the announcement.
Getting a bit worried by the reaction, the major league umpires scheduled a conference call with their counterparts in the minor leagues, to beseech them to refuse big league promotions to replace those who are resigning. The minor leaguers, who have spent their entire careers waiting for such a chance, would be wise to respond, "Hey, Tubby, just make sure you leave those little whisk brooms behind so we can whisk away your scent from the locker rooms."
Just what did they expect? Everybody hates umpires. From Little League to the majors, every move they make manages to irritate at least half the players in the game and most of the spectators. But Chief Richie is still delusional: "When push comes to shove, the fans know the umpires are the real people of baseball. They are blue-collar workers, like the fans." Blue collar, size 54.
Which
leads us to the obvious question: Why the hell are big league umpires so
fat? We're not just talking about being overweight here - words like pudgy,
paunchy and porky are completely inadequate to describe the situation.
No, check out the picture of two of them waddling out of their resignation
meeting. This is massive, humongous, corpulent, grotesque obesity. These
are some Big Mothers. No wonder they're bumping players when they get close
to them.
What are these guys going to do now? It won't be easy to find another job that pays $75,000-$225,000 for part time work. But just to show there are no hard feelings, here's my list of a few things you retired umpires are qualified to be:
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