There is an ethical argument for this ridiculous, game ending call, though not a very persuasive one. At the college level, the umpire was teaching a young player a lesson: don’t show up the umpire, or your team might be hurt.
I said it wasn’t very persuasive. Obviously punitive calls like this hurt the game in the yes of fans while undermining trust in umpires. (Ethics Alarms is breathlessly waiting for robo-called balls and strikes). The late Red Sox TV color man Jerry Remy, a former player, used to talk about how certain umpires would deliberately “squeeze” him in their strike calls because Remy was a frequent complainer, but none, presumably, was ever as obvious about it as the ump in the video. That was both ridiculous and stupid; he has, reportedly, been suspended.
Good.
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Pointer: Tim LeVier
Ethics Alarms 
In a perfect world, the call should be overturned and the game should be resumed from that point. However, for a host of reasons, that is not practical or possible. This means the ump’s improper cannot be corrected. That leads to the question, should his judgment ever be trusted again? If the answer is “no” or “HELL NO!” then suspension should not be sufficient.
I agree completely. That ump has to be fired.
The call that inspired replay in MLB was an honest call, if bad.
This has not even that virtue.
The ump may have imparted his message — don’t show me up.
Now the NCAA needs to imparts its message — don’t screw with the game itself.
He should go.
Umpires do not like being shown up by anyone – not hitters, not catchers, not pitchers. It must be that narcissism is part of the nature of an umpire, to somehow presume to never be wrong. Yeah, they are the game’s arbiter, but still, they can make mistakes.
The penultimate pitch in that sequence appeared to be low, even when it crossed the plate. Hitters – professional hitters especially, but D1 college-level hitters as well – have a very good idea of the strike zone. They don’t miss many poorly-called strikes. The hitter was right to question the call, though his antics were over-the-top, to be sure.
The umpire’s response is so typical of what we constantly see and discuss in these forums in our culture: cancellation. The umpire didn’t like the response he got from the hitter, so he simply cancelled the hitter on the next pitch. I bet the umpire would have called a strike if the pitcher rolled the ball to the plate. This kind of garbage needs to stop…everywhere. People – whether they are hitters in the box, pitchers on the mound, or a member of Facebook – have a right to disagree with something, even if they’re wrong in their disagreement.
I often think back to Armando Galarraga’s lost no-hitter…2010 maybe? The first-base umpire missed the 27th out, calling the runner safe at first when he was clearly out. Next day?…that umpire met Galarraga at home plate with a humble, tearful apology for his mistake – one that kept Armando from a little piece of baseball immortality. And Galarraga’s response was to accept it and shake the hand of Jim Joyce (the umpire).
You are 100% right. The umpire should be fired. An arbiter of the game who can’t separate feelings to be even remotely accurate has no business in the game.
And now I have to correct my own post:
Armando’s performance would have been a perfect game, not just a no-hitter.
I remember it well, and wrote a lot about it at the time. It was so obviously a bad call, yet the umpire was one of the best.
Jack,
My apologies, but I tried to respond and I think WordPress trapped it. If you are able to resurrect one of them (I tried twice), I would be very grateful.
Many thanks in advance!
It’s up, and I have no idea why it was spammed. you would think the WP spambot would be a fan of robo-umps….
Good thing the ump was black. Can you imagine Steven A. Smith going off on that clip if the ump had been a white guy?
The batter was totally out of line, but the ump should have just given him a strong verbal warning rather than retaliating in such an illogical manner. Would have been good for the batter going forward. We’re supposed to learn something from athletics in college and high school.