Umpires Have Had Enough

Major league umpires, still seething over the Roberto Alomar spitting incident of last season and a general absence of stiffer penalties for abusive players, said Monday they have had enough.

They announced that they will put up with fewer arguments this season and will be quicker to eject players and managers.

“Tolerance in baseball is leading to total anarchy,” umpires Jerry Crawford and Don Denkinger said in a statement. “The rules of the game will be rigidly enforced.”

Acting Commissioner Bud Selig, concerned that a short fuse is getting shorter, expressed dismay over the announcement.

“We expect they will not make a travesty of the game,” Selig said in a statement. “If they do, appropriate action will be taken.

“This is not a time for divisive statements. Rather, it is a time for umpires and players to come together in the best interests of the game.”

Said Eugene Orza, associate counsel of the players’ union:

“How confrontational and flamboyant statements serve the long-term interests of the umpires themselves is something, I guess, only the umpires can explain. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another press release.”

Perhaps, but the umpires seemed to be drawing a line.

“Umpires will no longer bend over backwards to keep players in the game,” Richie Phillips, head of the umpires’ union, said. “The umpires, who have been oft-criticized for being too confrontational, will engage in less arguments on the field. Players who engage in aberrant behavior can expect an immediate ejection and little conversation.”

Phillips said the umpires believe they have been too tolerant and decided during a recent meeting in Palm Springs that players will be ejected for even minor violations.

As an example, he said, the rules on the speed of the game will be rigidly enforced. Pitchers are required to throw a pitch within 20 seconds when no runners are on base, but the rule has never been implemented.

“They will now tell players to get in the box,” Phillips said. “If the player doesn’t get in the box, they’ll call for the pitch. If the player objects, he will be ejected.”

Selig and other baseball officials were angered by the timing of the umpires’ announcement, because it seemed to disrupt the possibility of progress in a series of meetings aimed at refining the rules of conduct and toughening penalties. The first of those meetings, embracing representatives of the umpires’ and players’ unions, along with Selig and other officials, was held in Florida recently.

The Baltimore Oriole second baseman received a five-game suspension for spitting at umpire John Hirschbeck last September and will serve it at the start of the season while still being paid. The umpires wanted a longer suspension without pay and wanted Alomar to serve it during the postseason, threatening a strike until a federal judge issued an injunction, forcing them to work the playoffs and World Series.

Any change in the rules governing suspensions and overall conduct, of course, would have to receive the approval of the players’ union, which is unlikely.

A union lawyer, responding to Monday’s announcement by the umpires, said he saw it as a “misguided” negotiating ploy to put pressure on the players to accept changes and worried that, if implemented, it will disrupt the game.

“Umpires, indeed, have been more confrontational in recent years, and now they’re attempting to put the onus on the players,” he said.