It would be too easy for me to point to the childish (and worse) remarks that came in response to this AOL Fanhouse posting by Matt Watson. Most of you can figure it out already - "he is arrogant , self-important ; he has no charactor , he has no honor , he has no class , he has no intrigrity . you can take the man out of the ghetto but you can never take the ghetto out of the man". Some others similar to that, and some that pointed out that the umpire was acting unprofessionally.
Well, now MLB announced that umpire, Mike Winters, has been suspended for the rest of the season (all five games or whatever, plus postseason) for his role in that confrontation:
"There's a certain conduct that the umpires are expected to uphold," said Patrick Courtney, vice president of public relations for Major League Baseball. "The feeling is he crossed that line. You are supposed to defuse these situations."
Listen, at the end of the day Milton Bradley is considered a hot-head because of prior actions. That's how it is, and it's not like he's done anything to this point to "turn over a new leaf" or show that those days are in his past. This doesn't absolve him. But it should serve to remind everyone, just like the Tim Donaghy incident sort of justified Rasheed Wallace's tantrum after a game on him, that sometimes just because a hot-head is acting like a hot-head doesn't necessarily mean that he's wrong. Or that he doesn't have a good reason to be frustrated, like being called a "f*cking piece of sh*t", has it now appears he was.
When I did my Umpire Bias Survey earlier this season, I noted that Mike Winters had ejected four people this season, including two Hispanic players (in a season where only 19 Hispanics in total had gotten tossed - remember, our conclusion was that foreign players were under-ejected overall). He's clearly not a player favorite, as five ejections in this season (none for fighting, and only one "automatic" ejection for throwing at a hitter) puts him near the top of the list of umpires in altercations. While everyone jumped on the "Milton Bradley is a hot-head player" angle, no one followed up on the "Mike Winters is a hot-head umpire" angle....
Editor's Note: For a good discussion on this topic, check out today's The Starting Five post.
Update: One More Dying Quail has a detailed look at Winter's previous five ejections. It has to be mentioned that OMDQ's amazing documenting of umpire ejections this year is what allowed my post about Umpire Bias to even exist. Kudos.
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To whom it may concern, I'm sure this email will never reach anyone who cares, but its worth a shot. I was watching the Tigers game tonight and I know I'm way behind but I just learned about Milton Bradleys injury last year. I decided to youtube it and see what happened. I just want to say, I think its complete bull crap how MLB hung their umpire out to dry. My guess is he swore at the stupid athlete because Bradley had probably dropped about 10 f bombs before the ump even responded with one. I am so sick of athletes thinking they are above the officiating staff. The officiating staff is hired to do a job because they are good at it, and no one is perfect. 99.5% of they calls they make are good calls. It gets to the point as an official that you just cant take anymore bitching so out of instinct, you swear back. I guarentee Bradley didnt lose any money at all out of this, but that poor ump probably lost around 50K by suspending his post season
chances. I think MLB should be ashamed of theirselves and they need to take a long hard look at theirselves and remember who is in charge on that field, and remember without umps, there is no game. You guys screwed him, plain and simple.