When Umpires Compound Bad Calls

You could read Eric O'Flaherty's lips on TV. "How do you miss that?", he repeated to plate umpire Bill Hohn.

I doubt the response was, "Because I'm blind with an ugly mustache to boot," before he made three quick ejections.

Anyone who watched all or part of the game had to wonder who was the awful umpire behind home plate.

The man doing the Eric Gregg impersonation behind the plate with the disgusting facial hair was Bill Hohn—not the first time I've seen him call an inconsistent (at best) game of balls and strikes.

If the Braves had scored in the ninth after Nate McLouth's walk—I would expect a Red Sox fan to be writing a similar article.

The nice thing about instant replay is that it does show, in most cases, whether or not a call was made correctly. I'm glad MLB added it as a tool for umpires to get homers correct.

Those of us watching TV get the ability to see when umpires, referees and officials make mistakes, and then analyze whether or not it made a difference in the final outcome.

This day, it probably did.

Umpires are human and make mistakes. The NFL realizes that and for the past few years evaluates referees and if there's a badly blown call in the game, they'll at least admit a mistake. The addition of the challenges and in-game instant replay allows the referees to get the call right, eliminating most of the bad calls. 

If you're a San Diego Chargers fan, or were a New York Giants fan in 2003, that may not be enough.

But the MLB Umpire Association can't continue to not address blatant umpiring mistakes that greatly impact games.

On May 13, plate umpire Paul Schreiber ejected Tigers manager Jim Leyland after Schreiber put his hand on Magglio Ordonez's shoulder after a called strike three.

Was there anything inherently wrong? No. However, it was perceived to be inappropriate and Schreiber personally apologized the next day.

I doubt Chipper Jones will be getting any apologies from Bill Hohn.

In the rule book, I understand the reason behind umpires ejecting players or coaches if they argue balls and strikes.

However, Bill Hohn went from being a bad judge of the strike zone to an all-out poor umpiring job when he ran Eric O'Flaherty, Chipper Jones and Bobby Cox in succession.

Even the Boston broadcasters on NESN, especially Hall of Fame pitcher Dennis Eckersley, agreed that the 0-2 fastball O'Flaherty threw to J.D. Drew in the seventh inning was strike three.

However, I don't agree with Eck's idea that he tossed the Braves trio because he knew he missed the call and didn't want to hear about it.

O'Flaherty got tossed while he was still on the mound, gesturing with open hands and saying twice "How do you miss that?", while Hohn walked closer to him and third baseman Chipper Jones. His ejection didn't matter much as Cox was about to bring in another reliever anyways.

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