Methinks thou didst not protest enough

[skeeter]

I'm not sure, but in 2013 Bleacher Report determined MLB's five worst umps to be,
from one through five,

Angel Hernandez
C.B. Bucknor
Joe West
Marty Foster (He once called strike three on Ben Zobrist, then with the Rays, enabling then-Texas
closer Joe Nathan's 300th career save . . . but even Nathan admitted he wouldn't have called the
off-the-zone pitch a strike.)
Bob Davidson (Who was cited in a 2011 Sports Illustrated players' poll as the fourth-worst ump
in the business.)

Both Hernandez & Buckner have been infamous in the majors for going on 20 years. Like I said, what do ya gotta do to get fired.

[EasyAce]

Both Hernandez & Buckner have been infamous in the majors for going on 20 years. Like I said, what do ya gotta do to get fired.

@skeeter
In Brian Runge's case, he was fired in 2013---for failing multiple drug tests.

In the case of Marty Springstead, Rich Garcia, and Jim McKean, longtime umps who became ump supervisors,
it took a phalanx of blown calls in the 2009 postseason to put their heads on plates. (There were numerous
blown calls in the American League's division series and ALCS that fall---and one of the umps who blew calls
was, what do you know, C.B. Bucknor.)

In Al Clark's case, he got sent to the guillotine in 2001 when MLB discovered he was abusing his major league
credit card in the wake of an earlier case in which he'd been caught in a memorabilia scam involving David
Wells's perfect game.

In the sad case of Dave Pallone, then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti eased him out fearing the ump
wouldn't be able to handle the pressure if his homosexuality became public knowledge. (Pallone eventually
wrote his own memoir.)

In the strange case of Al Salerno and Bill Valentine, then-American League president Joe Cronin canned
both after they worked the crew in a Cleveland Indians series in 1968---with Cronin saying only that they were
"bad umpires," but Salerno and Valentine claiming the real reason was their effort to organise AL umpires
into a union. It was the only time Cronin ever fired umpires during his tenure as AL president. And, in fact,
the Salerno/Valentine firings did lead to the formation of the old Major League Umpires' Association:
the National League's umpires voted to admit the AL arbiters into their little unit and thus was the MLUA
born. The further bad news: the National Labour Relations Board eventually ruled that Salerno and
Valentine hadn't proven they were fired over union organising. Valentine had a happy afterlife as the
GM of the minor league Arkansas Travelers; Salerno suffered multiple heart attacks, a bitter divorce,
and sporadic employment after his umpiring days ended, all because he fought the firing to the end of
his life, dying in 2007.

[Bigun]

1) The players' union was solidified at first over disputes involving player pensions; that was the
reason a committe of four---Hall of Famers Robin Roberts and Jim Bunning plus pitcher Bob
Friend and outfielder Harvey Kuenn---made the search that brought them Marvin Miller at the
end of 1966.

2) The original umpires' union formed over an issue similar to the players' original issue,
plus better pay since the umps were almost as underpaid at the time as the players were.
(Baseball's average salary at that time, the early 1970s, was lower than that of other
team sports.)

3) The players asked nothing more than that the original language of the reserve clause---
one contracted season, a team option for one additional season, and then the right
to negotiate their services on an open market the way any and every other American
worker from the most obscure guy on the dock to the most powerful guy in the head
office enjoyed---be enforced to its letter. Had the owners not abused the clause in near-
perpetuity (and, for that matter, gone for salary arbitration way sooner than they finally
did), there might never have had to be a Messersmith-McNally case to get the clause
neutralised and usher in free agency.

4) The players had only half a clue of what an honest, free market might bring them
until Catfish Hunter became a free agent after 1974 . . . when A's owner Charlie
Finley reneged on contracted-for insurance payments to Hunter, who took it to an
arbitrator, won, and became the subject of a bidding war in which he ended up taking
the third highest dollar amount he was offered, believe it or not. (He asked for,
and got, salary, deferred money, guaranteed annuities for the education of his children,
and guaranteed insurance money. The Yankees' total dollars were the third highest
he was offered---the Padres offered more money but not in terms of the conditions
Hunter wanted---and he became a Yankee.)

4) Andy Messersmith pitched 1975 without a contract, essentially playing out the written
team option, after contract talks broke down over a personal issue then-Dodgers GM
Al Campanis injected into their talks, enraging Messersmith enough to demand a no-
trade clause and to pitch without a contract when Dodger president Peter O'Malley
offered him the moon's worth of money but no such clause. (Dave McNally---who planned
to retire, but who still steamed over the Expos reneging on an agreement involving
part of his final salary---signed onto the case in the event Messersmith changed his
mind with the Dodgers offering more and more money as he pitched on.) When among
other things Twins owner Calvin Griffith admitted in a newspaper interview the actual,
proper interpretation of the reserve clause and exposed without meaning to how it had
been misapplied for all those decades, Messersmith won.

(Said Ted Simmons: Curt Flood stood up for us. Jim Hunter showed us what was out
there. Andy showed us the way.)

5) How come juiced balls, actual or alleged, didn't destroy the game in 1920, when
the tighter-wound ball plus the new rule about clean balls being required in play
continuously (that was in the wake of the tragic Ray Chapman incident), when the
long ball became supreme (mostly at the end of Babe Ruth's bat)?

6) What's so terrible about instant replay if it means---especially during championship
rounds---getting it right? (If they'd had instant replay long before it finally came
around, Tommie Agee would have been out at the plate, Ed Armbrister would have been
called out for interference, Jorge Orta would have been out at first base, and Jeffrey Maier
wouldn't have been the MVP---that's a joke, son---of the 1996 American League Championship
Series.)

7) In one way, you could say that the owners refusing to listen to Kenesaw Mountain
Landis the one time he made any sense prevented baseball from getting sensible
about player compensation decades before it turned the game upside down:

When Hall of Famer Earl Averill was sold to the Cleveland Indians out of the Pacific
Coast League, Averill demanded a piece of the sale price. The owners laughed, but
Landis said on the record he thought Averill had a point. Ultimately, Averill and
the Indians negotiated a kind of bonus for him and he joined them to begin his
major league career. Had Averill been given the percentage of the sale price he'd
first demanded, it might well have saved the owners a truckload of down-the-road-
apiece issues. (When Bowie Kuhn outlawed player sales in the wake of Charlie
Finley's attempted Oakland A's fire sale, it was a big cripple upon baseball as
the free agency era began, since not even the players argued the owners didn't
have certain rights regarding player development, and you may remember that
even the players didn't seek one-and-done free agency right out of the chute,
they acknowledged the teams that first signed them had certain time rights and
kept to them.)

8) Name one fan who has ever gone to a major league baseball game to see
the team's owners or the umpires. (Yankee fans in the 1980s going as much
to protest the worst of George Steinbrenner's act---such as the Banner Day
parade participant garbed like a monk and carry a scepter off which hung
a sign saying FORGIVE HIM, FATHER, FOR HE KNOWS NOT WHAT HE DOES
---were the exception.)

All of that is no doubt true!  None of it changes my view one iota!

[skeeter]

@skeeter
In Brian Runge's case, he was fired in 2013---for failing multiple drug tests.

In the case of Marty Springstead, Rich Garcia, and Jim McKean, longtime umps who became ump supervisors,
it took a phalanx of blown calls in the 2009 postseason to put their heads on plates. (There were numerous
blown calls in the American League's division series and ALCS that fall---and one of the umps who blew calls
was, what do you know, C.B. Bucknor.)

In Al Clark's case, he got sent to the guillotine in 2001 when MLB discovered he was abusing his major league
credit card in the wake of an earlier case in which he'd been caught in a memorabilia scam involving David
Wells's perfect game.

In the sad case of Dave Pallone, then-commissioner A. Bartlett Giamatti eased him out fearing the ump
wouldn't be able to handle the pressure if his homosexuality became public knowledge. (Pallone eventually
wrote his own memoir.)

In the strange case of Al Salerno and Bill Valentine, then-American League president Joe Cronin canned
both after they worked the crew in a Cleveland Indians series in 1968---with Cronin saying only that they were
"bad umpires," but Salerno and Valentine claiming the real reason was their effort to organise AL umpires
into a union. It was the only time Cronin ever fired umpires during his tenure as AL president. And, in fact,
the Salerno/Valentine firings did lead to the formation of the old Major League Umpires' Association:
the National League's umpires voted to admit the AL arbiters into their little unit and thus was the MLUA
born. The further bad news: the National Labour Relations Board eventually ruled that Salerno and
Valentine hadn't proven they were fired over union organising. Valentine had a happy afterlife as the
GM of the minor league Arkansas Travelers; Salerno suffered multiple heart attacks, a bitter divorce,
and sporadic employment after his umpiring days ended, all because he fought the firing to the end of
his life, dying in 2007.

Wow, thanks for the info. Its hard to believe that what happened to Pallone was ever possible, even 30 years ago.