IT’S A MADD MADD WORLD...

Can anyone explain why Angel Hernandez, who continues to embarrass baseball, is still working as an umpire? Last Sunday night on national TV in Philadelphia, Hernandez had another doozy of a game behind the plate, missing 19 calls for a score of 85.3%, including one that missed the plate by 6.47 inches according to Umpire Auditor. Hernandez’s latest horrendous performance was punctuated by the Phillies’ Kyle Schwarber’s epic meltdown after being rung up by a pitch that was clearly off the plate for the second out in the ninth inning. Then, a few days later, Cowboy Joe West, of all people, came to Hernandez’s defense, claiming the internal league office grading system gave Hernandez a score of 96%, which would actually be 2% above the league average! How stupid do they think we are? Millions of people watched replay after replay on TV last Sunday and players from both teams were in universal agreement that Hernandez’s pitch calling was awful. Last May, the Cuban-born Hernandez lost his discrimination suit against baseball in which he complained about not

being assigned to the World Series since 2005 and never being offered a crew chief position. The court ruled that no reasonable jury would have concluded Hernandez had been discriminated against by MLB, which had cited Hernandez’s consistently low ratings as a primary factor in his lack of promotions. Yet despite those low ratings and countless egregious missed calls through the years that have brought him national attention as the worst umpire in baseball, Hernandez goes on — nothing new for baseball, which never fires or demotes umpires despite having a grading system purportedly for that purpose. Seriously, in what profession can a person continually do a bad job — as Hernandez has for 30 years as a major league ump — and never have to worry about being fired? The reason is, that baseball just doesn’t care. Forever, MLB has refused to invest in umpire development because they obviously don’t feel umpires are all that important. For what it’s worth, it was announced in February that for the first time in nearly two decades, the minor league umpires would be receiving pay raises — to $3,000 a month in A and AA ball and $4,500 a month at Triple-A, which by my calculation is barely the minimum wage.