Doug Eddings, worst ump in baseball

Doug Eddings, worst ump in baseball

Fans of baseball tend to know that Doug Eddings is one of the worst umpires in baseball today. He’s a drama stooge who used to get reversed all the time but now likes to reverse himself. He provokes as much argument as he receives, and he even baits players into argument. And he has this annoying habit in an ump, of not being able to see the obvious.
Fans may recall a game from early 2002 when Eddings reversed himself and screwed the Angels:
Troy Glaus hit Erik Hiljus’ next pitch down the left field line, and the ball appeared to hit the foul pole. Third base umpire Doug Eddings originally ruled a homer, but after a conference of the umpires, the call was overturned.
“I didn’t see it,” Glaus said. “I didn’t think I hit it that far. I was running for a double. This was a first for me, to have a homer called back like that.”
“I pretty much lost it and called it a home run and then heard it hit concrete,” Eddings said. “It was the wrong call. Art (Howe) came out and said I should talk to the other umpires which I did. They all lost it too but they all heard it hit concrete so we reversed the call. If we weren’t 100 percent in that decision I wouldn’t have changed it. In my own mind after the play I thought it was foul.”
Parallel to a call a year earlier, when a ball that was an obvious home run was initially called a double by Eddings:
Saenz hit the first pitch of the third for his sixth homer, though it was originally ruled a double by second base umpire Doug Eddings. The umpires conferred at the request of Howe and changed the call. Television replays showed the ball hit well above a yellow line atop the 19-foot wall in left.
But he’s gotten more emphatic when he blows the call over the years. Last year, he made yet another perfectly blind call in a Rangers game, and this time made it stick:
Tiffee hit a chopper that arced high over Mark Teixeira, and first baseumpire Doug Eddings. Though Eddings was a step off of the first base line, and had his back to where the ball landed, he emphatically ruled the ball fair. Never mind that the ball bounced foul when Tiffie hit it, or that it landed in foul territory, behind Eddings. The Tiffee double allowed two runs to score, and nothing Buck Showalter could do would get Eddings to even ask home plate umpire Dan Iassogna for a second opinion.
Just a couple of months ago, he egged on Craig Biggio by claiming that he didn’t make enough of an effort to get out of the way of a ball outside of the strike-zone—a near-automatic free pass to first—and then he followed Biggio down the line when Biggio later flied out.
Weaver struck Biggio on the left shoulder with a pitch, but plate umpire Doug Eddings called Biggio back, claiming he hadn’t made enough of an effort to get away from the pitch, even though Biggio ducked his shoulder.
“He just said, ‘Stay here,’ ” Biggio said. “I guess he’s had a lot of balls thrown at him and knows how easy it is to get out of the way of them. You’re sitting on a slider and know he’s going to throw it, and he starts one behind you and it breaks in the middle of the batter’s box.”
Biggio and Garner argued the call without success, extending the at-bat. Biggio lofted a fly ball toward right field and pounded his bat into the ground, glancing back at Eddings as he ran to first.
Eddings followed Biggio down the line, and tempers flared. After getting ejected, Biggio had to be restrained by third-base coach Doug Mansolino, and he threw his helmet onto the field as he departed.
“It wasn’t like it was a big part of the game,” said Biggio, dripping with sarcasm. “It was only first and second in the seventh inning with one out and a guy in scoring position.”
Garner was ejected for the second time this season moments later.
“It wasn’t a good call, let’s put it that way,” Garner said. “He said he had to make an attempt to get out of the way, and I said he did make an attempt to get out of the way. He said (the pitch) was close to the plate, and I asked him if it was a strike. He said it wasn’t strike. I just don’t understand the call.”
One thing for sure–as he did twice on the key play tonight, he loves calling strikes. He loves calling strikes so much, in fact, that he is well-known to over-under bettors as one of a handful of umps who call a disproportionate amount of strikes and low-scoring games:
Low Scoring Umpires usually allow less than 9 runs per game, call more than 62% strikes and give up less than 2.5 HRs per game. The following umpires call 60% of the games under: Mark Carlson, Doug Eddings, Charlie Reliford Bill Welke, Jerry Meals, Darren Spagnardi Matt Hollowell, Adam Dowdy, Brian Gorman, Brian Runge, Derryl Cousins and Tim Timmons.
And he was, of course, the ump who was bumped by Johnny Estrada this year, leading to Estrada’s three game suspension (reduced to two games). Carrying the grudge forward, he also tossed Estrada later in the year. Cox and Estrada say Eddings provoked. (The argument, of course, was about Eddings’ strike zone. In the first inning).
Both Cox and Estrada insisted Eddings escalated the argument with coarse language.
‘’At one point, I said, ‘Why are you yelling at me?”’ Estrada said. ‘’I don’t think it’s right, he can say what he wants and I can’t.'’
He’s had quite a run over his six year career. Lots of temper, lots of vindictive behavior. He doesn’t belong in an LCS game. Not even on a foul line. Yet this is his third LCS.