ESPN's Olney criticizes Froemming's reported selection for World Series

From Buster Olney's current ESPN column:

Word is that Bruce Froemming, nearing the end of his 37-year career, is in line to call Games 1 and 7 of the World Series and serve as the crew chief. Froemming has had an amazing career and likely will be inducted into the Hall of Fame one day, but the bottom line is that he is not close to being the best umpire in the game these days...

He shouldn't be getting this responsibility, for the same basic reason that Magic Johnson and Larry Bird and Charles Barkley no longer are selected for the Olympic basketball team: Although they might have been the best at one time, they are no longer the best...This has been a summer of love for the longtime umpire, who was given a gracious and well-earned sendoff in cities around the sport. But the World Series is the sport's most competitive and most watched event, and lining up Froemming to have this responsibility is not fair to the teams, to the players, to his more qualified peers or to Froemming.

I thought that World Series umpires, like Super Bowl officials, were chosen based on a scoring system. Does anyone who knows more than I do have any input here?

I respect the hell out of Froemming, but I don't believe that a championship assignment should be used as a gold watch.

NLDS tonight

I only watched Cubs/D-Backs, and only on fast-forward. But I stopped because they did a pretty big production number to introduce the umpires...giving each a big picture and the number of years they've umpired playoff ball.

They then had a breakdown of home plate umpire Ed Montague similar to the way they'd do a "breaks of the game" segment. Color man Ron Darling called Montague a great umpire, a guy who will discuss the strike zone with you, and who will expand his zone if the pitcher is hitting his spots. "He's not a QuesTec umpire," Darling said.

I like the umpire love and attention, but I'm not sure Darling's is the direction I think it should go. I assume that Darling is mostly talking about Montague from his experiences with him as a player (perhaps I'm jumping to a conclusion there). But since Darling retired in 1995, long before QuesTec, how would he know what a QuesTec umpire is? If I understand correctly, the whole stinkin' point of QuesTec is to eliminate an umpire "expanding their zone" (or contracting it). So I trust all umpires are likely now "QuesTec Umpires," whether by choice or not. I speak, of course, from no real experience...

but hey, it's been a while since I've posted at all, and I noticed this today...so, yeah.

How are you all doing?