Hi everyone!
This is my first post here and I'm an italian Baseball umpire!
I love Major League Baseball and I would love to talk to all of you about the best Umpire in the Pro's.

What about Jerry Crawford?
I don't like Tim McClelland because he is TOO SLOW at the calls.
On the last World Series I liked very much Tim Welke (the HP Umpire of Game 6).
What about your preferences?

The best MLB Umpire is the fat guy sitting in the easy chair sucking down the cold ones. He gets all the calls right!

He's got a twin, that comes to most of the games I call also. I bet he even goes to Italy huh?

Best MLB Umpire
 

Most of the MLB umpires do their jobs very well on the diamond.

Tim McClelland, Larry Young, Chuck Meriwhether, etc..... most of the veteran guys are very good, as well as the younger guys.

Maybe a more interesting topic would be that of the WORST MLB Umpires.

Angel Hernandez is brutal.... he has by far, the worst strike-zone in all of baseball. I am not basing this on one game either.... he is rediculous.

Last year, anyone that saw the game where he was screened on the roller down the 3rd base line, knows where I am coming from.

Joe Brinkman pisses me off as well, as he tries to be so casual, and has that "jerk" look to him.

Tim McClelland takes FOR-EVER to make a call. I know you aren't supposed to rush the call, but he takes it beyond the extreme.

Of course, he's in the bigs, and I'm not, so who am I to criticize (except on a message board ;)

Best umpire of all time? Don Denkinger. We in the Kansas City area absolutely love him!

And 19 years later, we St. Louis fans still hate him.

As for the worst umpire in the bigs right now, I'd have to go with C.B. Bucknor. I don't think I've ever seen a game of his that there wasn't some sort of controversy over one of his calls...and replays usually proved him wrong.

I hope you hate Joaquin Andujar even more. I mean, giving up 11 runs in a game seven is just downright awful.

Jerry Crawford, John Hirschbeck, Alfonso Marquez, Ted Barrett, Ed Rapuano, Tim Welke, Larry Young, Chuck Merriweather, Laz Diaz, and Mike Everitt in my opinion are probably the top umpires in baseball right now.

All of these guys take care of business the right way both on and off the field. You never hear their names mentioned in bad light and their games are always smooth running from start to finish.

My favorite is Marquez especially after the way he handled himself last year in the ALCS when he was behind the plate and then big brawl insued with the famous Martinez/Don Zimmer tangle.

Alfonso handled himself through out the whole thing. Plus, after the incident was all said and done, Marquez went back and kept working hard, calling the same strike zone he started off with.

I think Marquez, Barrett, and Diaz are not too far away from working their first world series within the next five years.

At the time of Game 7 in 1985, I was all of 2 years old. So I obviously don't remember the series. But I can't go to a Cards game without seeing at least one sign that says something about Denkinger. Of course, even if the call had gone the other way, St. Louis might still have lost that Game 6. Still, it would have been nice to say that "my team" has won a world championship in my lifetime.

I would think that of all people, umpires would understand that umpires do not win or lose games. The players have a multitude of opportunities to do that.

How many times did the umpire strike out? How many times did an umpire's pitch get hit for a double? How many times did the umpire throw out a runner? How many times did the umpires miss catching a fly ball?

There are literally hundreds of opportunities in every game for the players to do something positive or negative to win or lose a game. Even a bad call in the bottom of the ninth with two outs does not have near the impact.

[Edited by GarthB on Apr 27th, 2004 at 11:50 PM]

McClleland is only slow on TV. He verbally calls the pitch and then signals. I've seen batters start walking back to the dugout on strike three before he signals it.

My favourite umpires are Ed Rapuano, Ted Barrett, Tim McClleland, Jim Joyce, Tim Welke, Jerry Crawford.

Hunter Wendelstedt has impressed me for a young guy, solid strike zone.

The Royals would have scored at least one run even without the call at first. A few years ago I reconstructed the Royals half of the ninth using the video we recorded off of TV. Please don't tell MLB, because I did not have their expressed written consent.

Ed Rapuano has a too much tight strike zone. I don't like tight umpires. I consider that a lack of courage, sometimes.

I like Mike DiMuro and Joe West (the HP Umpire of Game 7 of the WS 2001).