October 5, 20215 yr I will say this about Cowboy Joe. I didn’t think he was a good umpire, at least in the last years. I can’t really say anything about his abilities earlier in his career. But there is no doubt that anyone who does something that long does it because he loves it. It would not be likely money would have been the driving force. That and the video of Nelson Cruz getting the pic during an at bat for one of Joe’s landmark games still was a great baseball moment. Joe West retiring won’t make baseball a better game, nor will robo umps. It may be a more "accurate" game, but also a more sterile one. Just another step towards more spreadsheet baseball!
October 5, 20215 yr The thing I always felt was that Joe West didn't love baseball. It felt like Joe West loved being the guy that people looked at and talked about. If things were quiet, Joe would rile someone up so that people paid attention to him. He confused baseball fans with people who came to watch him at work, or the people who went to hear him sing country music at bars. I don't think he was a bad umpire so much as he was an attention hound. That's not what an umpire is supposed to be. I also think he liked to goad people like Gardy. He wasn't good for the game, unless you thought the game was boring and wanted to see some human interaction beyond the players.
October 5, 20215 yr If he loved baseball so much he should have retired before he was actively hurting the game. He wasn't good at his job for the last 5-10 years, he just wanted the record so people would look at him. That is selfishness, not love of the game.
October 5, 20215 yr Joe did a lot of good things and he helped strengthen the umpires union. Nice career, best of luck to him.
October 5, 20215 yr This needed to happen years ago. I cannot comment on his call percentages, but in my opinion he was a terrible ump because he wanted the spot light on him. He would go out of his way to eject people. I do not care he was a crew chief, he would walk across the field while someone has having a normal conversation with another ump just to eject the person. I do not think a series went by with Gardy that he was not ejected at least 1 time when Joe was in town. Joe would love to make the big call that got noticed and had no issues pulling a quick ejection even approaching players and coaches to either get the argument going or keep it going.
October 5, 20215 yr 2 hours ago, cHawk said: All we need now is for Angel Hernandez to retire And Phil Cuzzi...
October 6, 20215 yr The most important thing, probably the only important thing, about umpiring is to protect the integrity of the game. This is accomplished by getting calls right as often as possible. Umpires owe it to the game to do so. If getting the calls right as often as possible means retiring or resigning to allow a better umpire to take over, then that's the right thing to do. And if getting calls right as often as possible means allowing non-human methods of making calls then that's the right thing to do.
October 6, 20215 yr Just one simple opinion, but baseball will not be as complete a game when robots take over from umpires. The umpires make fewer mistakes than the players. I was incensed when a call went against me when I pitched but always recognized that the game didn't work without an umpire. Joe West was pretty irritating at times but when I watched his calls, he was nearly always correct and his record and years of service to MLB is nothing less than laudable.
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