On Friday, September 4, the St Louis Cardinals defeated the Colorado Rockies 7-6, but that was not the story of the game. Rookie pitcher Hansel Rincon made his major league debut in the sixth inning, but that was only part of the story. Doug Eddings, like most baseball umpires, made the story about himself and admitted to Cardinals manager Oli Marmol that it was all about power and attention.
While facing Rockies catcher Cole Carrigg, Eddings called a timeout and, translated by Cardinals catcher Leo Bernal, told the right-handed pitcher from the Dominican Republic to straighten his hat. When Marmol came out to ask about the interaction, Eddings issued a pitch clock violation to the Cardinals and ejected their manager, but not before saying, “None is going to wear their hat like that on my field.”
Doug Eddings Was Just Acting Like A Human Umpire
This is typical behavior for umpires not only in the show, but really at all levels of the game. There’s something about putting on a chest protector and a facemask that makes grown men abuse what little power they have over the game to overcompensate for even less power in their personal lives. They are little men with Napoleon complexes, and they have short fuses.
Rincon is not the first player to wear his baseball cap slightly off to the side. Marmol pointed out in his press conference that players like Dontrelle Willis, Pedro Strop, and CC Sabathia all did this. Fernando Rodney did it to an extreme. In fairness to Eddings, it’s also not the first time home plate umpires acted foolishly and ruined part of a baseball game.
Major League Baseball (MLB) tested out the strike/ball challenge system last season in Spring Training, but didn’t use it during the regular season. During those exhibitions, a number of bad calls were overturned using the replay, which hitters and catchers would ask for by tapping their helmet. During the regular season, if a player tapped his helmet in protest of a bad call, they were warned by the home plate umpire, or even ejected without warning.
Umpires have been known to take off their masks and start yelling at a player for shaking their head or rolling their eyes. Despite what Eddings may think, it’s not the umpire’s field, and they aren’t even really part of the game. They are props with voices. They are supposed to make the correct calls on the field, but they don’t even do that well. On average, when Eddings is calling balls and strikes, he misses 10 out of every 150.
In 21 games so far this season, Ron Kulpa has gotten 255 calls wrong. Dan Iassogna has missed 312 calls in 27 games. It may seem like asking too much for them to get every single call right, but robots have a 0% error history. They make the right call on 100% of pitches. It seems ludicrous that some fans still think bad calls make the game better than getting it right every time.
Another benefit of robot umps is that they are emotionless. They don’t care if a player scoffs at a call, rolls their eyes, taps their helmet, or wears their hat crooked. They have one job, and that’s to call a baseball game correctly. They do it better than any human on the planet.
Lights Out Sports Podcast Calls For MLB Dress Code
In last night’s episode of the Lights Out Sports Podcast, hosts Michael Ballentine and Cheez discussed the incident between Eddings and Rincon. Around the one hour and 22 minute mark of the show, Ballentine asks, “Is it the umpires’ field?” Cheez correctly answers it’s not, and then Ballentine asks if there should be a dress code enforced on the field, including no crooked hats. Again, Cheez makes the right call.
Ballentine says he would like some sort of a code, because in his words, “It is called a uniform.” Uniform is obviously acting as a noun (what the players wear) and an adjective (meaning all the same) in that statement. It feels like a “get off my lawn” gripe, because every workplace in the world that requires a uniform gives the employee some liberty on how they can wear it.
If khaki pants are required, the employee can roll the pant legs if they want. If a polo shirt is required, the employee can choose the color and whether or not they want to pop the collar. It doesn’t make sense for athletes or any other person in the workforce to be forced into blind, obedient compliance while all wearing grey jumpsuits, like this is some sort of dystopian nightmare.
Thankfully, Ballentine (or Emperor Palpatine) is not in charge of athletes’ “uniforms”. Unfortunately, sports fans still need to deal with lunatic umpires on childish power trips, and that won’t be fixed until the game starts to employ the T-1000 model that gets every call correct.
