Finally, it looks like MLB is going to do something about this loser.
Earlier this week, Joe West’s personal publicist sent out a mass email offering up his client for interviews.
(Pause, to allow the proper spit-take at the fact that a baseball umpire is self-absorbed enough to keep a P.R. man in his employ. Now, clean up that screen.)
Such emails are not uncommon. With a resistance to the spam boxes in which they ought automatically deposit themselves, the blasts show up every few weeks. West is always promoting something. His country music CD. His line of umpiring gear. And, without fail, himself.
He seems to have forgotten the cardinal rule of umpiring: stay invisible. Anonymity is godliness to baseball’s arbiters, and Joe West is an infidel, an attention whore of Lady Gaga proportions whose proclivity for theatrics shames the umpiring profession.
Mercifully, Major League Baseball has tired of his antics. A source said the league plans to suspend or fine West, one of its most tenured umpires, after he solicited reporters this week to talk about the controversy he created in April when he called the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox “pathetic and embarrassing” because of their long game times.
Between West dredging up a subject MLB was peeved he addressed in public in the first place, and the fallout from his ejections of Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and pitcher Mark Buehrle(notes) on Wednesday, his behavior reached a tipping point for baseball officials. MLB reprimanded West during a phone conversation Thursday and will continue to consult with the World Umpires Assocation – of which West is president – to determine the severity of his punishment.
West carries the reputation as a poor umpire and grudge holder, and so his unceremonious tossing of Guillen and Buehrle surprised no one. West called a balk on Buehrle, whose pickoff move is recognized as one of the game’s best. It was a suspect-at-best call, or par for the course, and he tossed Guillen for protesting. When West flagged Buehrle for another balk – just a flat-out bad call – the pitcher, disgusted, softly flopped his glove on the ground. West ejected him, too.
Following the game, Guillen ranted like Guillen does: F-bombs in triplicate, and a few more words that would have made George Carlin proud. Buehrle’s reaction was far more telling. Rarely outspoken and always measured, Buehrle took to West with an incisive jab that showed what people inside the game think of him.
“I think he’s too worried about promoting his CD,” Buehrle said, “and I think he likes seeing his name in the papers a little bit too much instead of worrying about the rules.”
(Pause, to allow the proper spit-take at the fact that a baseball umpire is self-absorbed enough to keep a P.R. man in his employ. Now, clean up that screen.)
Such emails are not uncommon. With a resistance to the spam boxes in which they ought automatically deposit themselves, the blasts show up every few weeks. West is always promoting something. His country music CD. His line of umpiring gear. And, without fail, himself.
He seems to have forgotten the cardinal rule of umpiring: stay invisible. Anonymity is godliness to baseball’s arbiters, and Joe West is an infidel, an attention whore of Lady Gaga proportions whose proclivity for theatrics shames the umpiring profession.
Mercifully, Major League Baseball has tired of his antics. A source said the league plans to suspend or fine West, one of its most tenured umpires, after he solicited reporters this week to talk about the controversy he created in April when he called the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox “pathetic and embarrassing” because of their long game times.
Between West dredging up a subject MLB was peeved he addressed in public in the first place, and the fallout from his ejections of Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and pitcher Mark Buehrle(notes) on Wednesday, his behavior reached a tipping point for baseball officials. MLB reprimanded West during a phone conversation Thursday and will continue to consult with the World Umpires Assocation – of which West is president – to determine the severity of his punishment.
West carries the reputation as a poor umpire and grudge holder, and so his unceremonious tossing of Guillen and Buehrle surprised no one. West called a balk on Buehrle, whose pickoff move is recognized as one of the game’s best. It was a suspect-at-best call, or par for the course, and he tossed Guillen for protesting. When West flagged Buehrle for another balk – just a flat-out bad call – the pitcher, disgusted, softly flopped his glove on the ground. West ejected him, too.
Following the game, Guillen ranted like Guillen does: F-bombs in triplicate, and a few more words that would have made George Carlin proud. Buehrle’s reaction was far more telling. Rarely outspoken and always measured, Buehrle took to West with an incisive jab that showed what people inside the game think of him.
“I think he’s too worried about promoting his CD,” Buehrle said, “and I think he likes seeing his name in the papers a little bit too much instead of worrying about the rules.”
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