Two Sides of Ump Accountability: One ump won’t admit bad ejection, crew chief admits bad call

By Jeff Kallman

You couldn’t script two more contrasting aftermaths. One week, an umpire tossed a manager without cause and doubled down on it even more erroneously when questioned by the press. The following weekend, a crew chief admitted his guys blew it with a flagrantly blown interference call at second base.

Baseball government still refuses or at least ignores the necessity of umpire accountability regardless. They’ll tinker with baseballs and uniforms. They’ll forge postseasons that make mockeries of pennant races and championship play. But they won’t even think about holding umpires to the kind of accountability they demand from players, coaches, managers, clubhouse personnel.

Aaron Boone, here arguing with long-time ump Joe West, has a reputation for “chirping” from the dugout.Photo byCredit: DR. Buddie, Wikimedia

22 April: First inning, Yankee Stadium. Manager Aaron Boone and a few Yankees chirped over a check swing on a low pitch that hit Athletics leadoff batter Esteury Ruiz in the foot. Plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt got help from first base umpire John Tumpane, Tumpane ruled Ruiz to first, and Wendelstedt ordered Boone and his troops to stop flapping their yaps.

Boone and his troops obeyed the order. A blue-shirted Yankee fan seated behind the Yankee dugout hollered something that looked like “Go home, ump!” Wendelstedt turned to the dugout where Boone stood as tight lipped as possible—and ejected Boone. The manager pleaded that it wasn’t himself but Mr. Blue Shirt.

“I don’t care who said it,” Wendelstedt hollered. “You’re gone!”

The A’s went on to win the game, 2-0. After which, Wendelstedt gave a vivid demonstration that three little words (I was wrong) weren’t programmed into his software:

This isn’t my first ejection. In the entirety of my career, I have never ejected a player or a manager for something a fan has said. I understand that’s going to be part of a story or something like that because that’s what Aaron was portraying. I heard something come from the far end of the dugout, had nothing to do with his area but he’s the manager of the Yankees. So he’s the one that had to go.

The most anyone in baseball government would say was to call the Boone purge “a bad ejection.” That was like calling the 1977 New York blackout rioting and looting a little shopping spree.

28 April. American Family Field, Milwaukee. Top of the sixth inning, Yankees and Brewers tied at four, after the Brewers tied it in the bottom of the fifth, when Brewers shortstop Willy Adames whacked an RBI double and first baseman Jake Bauers followed at once with a two-run homer. Now, Yankee center fielder Aaron Judge was aboard with a leadoff walk and left fielder Alex Verdugo was at the plate.

Verdugo hit a simple double play bouncer to Brewers second baseman Brice Turang. With Judge gunning it from first, Turang sent a backhand toss to Adames, who stepped on the pad as Judge dropped into a slide. As Adames crossed the pad and began to throw, Judge send his left hand skyward. The ball ricocheted off Judge’s sliding mitt and bounced its way to Bauers with Verdugo very safe at first.

Know this about Judge: The Leaning Tower of 161^st Street is tall enough that even dropping into a slide his upraised hand makes the Statue of Liberty resemble a mouse reaching for a tablecloth. He may plead that he’s been sliding the same way his whole career, but he hasn’t always raised his hand aiming to block a double play throw.

The missed interference didn’t seem to suggest any difference maker at first, with an infield pop out following immediately. But Brewers reliever Abner Uribe walked Anthony Rizzo on a full count. That proved soon enough to be comparable to a family heading for vacation but leaving the doors to the house open.

The Yankees raided the joint at once. An RBI single (Gleyber Torres), a bases-loading walk (Oswaldo Cabrera), a two-run single (José Treviño), a run-scoring wild pitch (with Anthony Volpe at the plate), another walk (to Volpe), another RBI single (Juan Soto), a double steal for second and third, and another two-run single. (Judge.) First, second, and third degree burglary.

The Brewers got one back in their half of the sixth on a bases-loaded walk, but an RBI single (Cabrera) and sacrifice fly (Treviño) in the seventh plus Rizzo’s two-run homer in the eighth made it 15-5, Yankees, to stay.

What of the interference call against Judge that never came?

Umpiring crew chief Andy Fletcher admitted postgame that his crew blew it. “After looking at it off the field in replay, it appears that the call was missed,” he told a pool reporter. “It should've been called interference because it wasn't a natural part of his slide. It didn't appear that way to us. We did everything we could to get together and get it right. But after looking at it, it appears that it should've been called interference.”

As mea culpas go, Fletcher’s wasn’t quite of a piece with Jim Joyce owning up at once to robbing Armando Galarraga’s perfect game. But Fletcher was hardly the master mealymouth Wendelstedt was. And he doesn’t seem to carry himself in the carelessly cavalier style of the Angel Hernandezes, Laz Diazes, or C.B. Bucknors.

In the wake of the Wendelstedt controversy, there came an accountability demand from one of the game’s most far-sighted players. Rehabbing at Round Rock for the Rangers, pitcher Max Scherzer laid down the law: “We need to rank the umpires. Let the electronic strike zone rank the umpires. We need to have a conversation about the bottom—let’s call it 10%, whatever you want to declare the bottom is—and talk about relegating those umpires to the minor leagues.”

The Korean Baseball Organization has sent consistently errant umps to the minors for re-training for several years. I’m not sure whether Scherzer is aware of that. But Max the Knife might be onto something. Imagine. Robby the Umpbot as an agent of umpire accountability. That’s an idea whose time may be several years overdue.

Jeff Kallman is an IBWAA Life Member who writes Throneberry Fields Forever. He has written for the Society for American Baseball Research, The Hardball Times, Sports-Central, and other publications. He has lived in Las Vegas since 2007, where he plays the guitar and writes music when not writing baseball. He remains a Met fan since the day they were born.