This site has called my attention to
this audio call from Wednesday night's Oklahoma Redhawks/Round Rock Express AAA baseball game.
Start listening at the one hour, 47 minute mark. And make yourself a sandwich before you do--things don't get sorted out for 20 minutes.
I will not be commenting on the call or badmouthing the replacement/scab umpires--I leave this to you guys to do. And my knowledge of baseball rules isn't really enough to say what the right thing to do in this situation is anyway (other than, obviously, not to catch the damned ball that was tossed to him).
Instead, I'd like to talk about the way the Redhawks' play-by-play guy, Jim Myers, goes absolutely crazy-nuts, calling the umpires many, many names (off the top of my head, I recall fat, incompetent, clown, and if I listened to it again.
If you read this site with any regularity (and I am talking to all three or four of you), you know how quickly I'll leap to the aid of attacked umpires.
I don't justify anyone calling anyone the names Myers calls the replacements/scabs, and I get a distinct impression that Myers isn't exactly a sweet man. But my instinctive reaction to these situations--to come to the defense of my "brothers in blue"--just ain' t there. And that's a shame, because if this happened at a high school or college game that these men happened to be working without crossing a picket line first, I'd have their backs.
Am I impacted by the way Myers identifies himself as a former hockey official...saying he's been there? Am I impacted by what seems to be a very, very poorly handled situation by the umpiring crew? I just don't know. But I don't feel the indignation I normally would.
I'm not proud of my sudden lack of empathy. But, for better or worse, it's there. So while I'm
not in favor of taking political advantage of a man being hit by a bat, I guess in some ways I'm more pro-union than I thought I was.
Good God, I want this damn thing to end.
