Umpires can be out of line, too

By Jorge Bannister
Fan Fanatic Sports Staff

Manny Ramirez. Utter those two words anywhere near a Red Sox fan and they’re sure to go into a frenzy.

Utter those two words to umpire John Hirschbeck, and he’s liable to throw you out like he did the slugger Tuesday night.

Let’s get one thing straight: I have no problem with umpires tossing players or coaches. In fact, I enjoy when the super stars get tossed more so than the Nick Green’s of the world.

(As an umpire for Little League and Babe Ruth games I haven’t tossed anyone yet. As a coach for a 13U AAU baseball team, I was tossed.)

With the Los Angeles Dodgers in Queens to play the New York Mets, Man-Ram wasn’t keen on some of the strike calls coming from Hirschbeck and barked at him for it.

Late in the game, it was more of the same, close calls not going Man-Ram’s way. After barking at Hirschbeck, Ramirez started his (extremely slow) stroll out to left field but not before tossing his bat, helmet and elbow guard — the elbow guard was tossed up in the air and landed, miraculously, in the right-handed batters box.

Hirschbeck didn’t even see the tossing of the elbow guard. He saw Ramirez fling his bat and helmet toward the Dodgers dugout, but he didn’t see the tossing of the elbow guard or where it landed. He was too busy looking into the crowd behind the plate to notice. However, he looked up toward the press box area, pointed at Man-Ram and, with a wave of the finger, tossed him.

Nobody knows what was said between the two except for Hirschbeck and Ramirez. Unfortunately, Major League Baseball, to my knowledge anyway, does not make incident reports filed by umpires available to the public.

I can see it now — REASON FOR EJECTION: He said I was doing a terrible job with the strike zone tonight..

Do you wanna hear something funny? He was terribad behind the plate. That’s right, terribad; a combination of terrible and bad. (I stole it from a friend. You can have it, too, if you’d like.)

The ejection, from the replay I’ve seen anyway, was unwarranted.

Major leaguers throw their stuff all the time and, yes, it’s a bad example for kids. And while big leaguers have to answer to owners and possible docks in pay, I suppose parents can dock their kids’ allowance for the week.

Some fans feel that the people in attendance at a baseball game go there to see the super stars and not the umpires. While that may be true, if the super star is acting like a complete jerk, the umpire is well within his rights to toss him.

That being said, I didn’t see Ramirez’s lips move as he was tossing his gear while making his stroll out to the outfield. If the elbow guard didn’t land anywhere near the batters box, Ramirez would’ve finished the game.