The worst umpired game I’ve ever seen….
Ξ July 18th, 2008 | → 1 Comments | ∇ Iron Pigs |
We went to the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs game tonight against the Scranton / Wilkes Barre Yankees. It was a full-moon night, it was humid as could be, and the night was bizarre from start from finish.
The Pigs take the field and Blackley, the Iron Pigs starter, is warming up. Our catcher, Jason Jaramillo, throws down to second and the ball goes into center field. They throw the ball back in from center field and the pitcher and catcher both miss it and it goes back behind home plate. Bad sign.
As I mentioned, it was hot and humid and it was bad enough but there were a bunch of drunk, arrogant Yankee fans in attendance who would make Philadelphia Eagle fans seem like the poster children of decency. But then again, I believe they didn’t really know they were Yankees fans until their 8th beer in the 1st inning and realized they were wearing a Yankees T-Shirt. But besides that, the game was just weird. Blackley was a bit wild, but nothing compared to the Home Plate Umpire! His name is Andrew Vincent and he was obscenely HORRIBLE. His strike zone was somewhere between the dirt in front of home plate, the back stop, and the top of the catch fencing. I know what you are saying, I’m just whining because the Pigs lost 6-4. But I’m telling you, this guy was HORRIBLE. In this game, he called late strikes on 3 players on their way to 1st base after taking what they thought was ball 4. He threw out a yankees player for arguing calls. He threw out the Pigs manager. He gave warnings for throwing at batters for ridiculous reasoning. And then the kicker… he ended the game by calling a foul ball into the seats and then deciding he wanted to end the game with “fan interference” for a ball 2 rows back!! Un-fricken-believable.
I hope the Iron Pigs provided security for Mr. Vincent. Or, after watching the way he acted and called this game, they assigned him a designated driver. This guy would have blown strike calls in a T-Ball game. He makes Phil Luckett look like one of the all time great sports officials. Looks like I’m not the only one who thinks this.
UPDATE: Here’s today’s Morning Call Article – I didn’t think the pitch went behind Moranda, but this article says it did. I just thought it was a very high pitch. Hard to tell with Blackley as his pitches were everwhere last night. Oh, and Vincent did not “immediately” call fan interference. He first signaled foul ball – I saw it definitively and only after a few seconds did he call fan interference.
