We were reminded once more Monday evening that one of the great quirks of baseball is slowly easing off into the sunset. It isn’t quite yet lying in repose alongside pitchers who log 300-plus innings in a season, expert bunters and double-play take-out slides that send a shortstop flying into left field. But it’s close.
The manager-umpire argument has become a lost art.
When Aaron Boone got into it with Laz Diaz late in the Yankees’ 5-1 loss to the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field on Monday night, it was simply another reminder that such occasional squabbles used to feature equal parts high comedy and visceral fury. Diaz’s malleable strike zone had already made him less popular in Chicago than a used Jay Cutler jersey.
Then, he called strike three against Anthony Volpe leading off the eighth inning of a 2-1 game. Ironically, even Boone was forced to admit later on, “I actually heard Anthony’s was a strike, maybe,” although the blow-up was more a result of Diaz, according to Umpire Auditor, missing on 19 of 166 balls and strikes calls.
(And, if we’re being fair: the Yankees endured back-to-back games of Angel Hernandez and Diaz behind the plate, and to put it kindly that’s like taking back-to-back Uber rides with drivers with ratings of zero stars.)
Still, Boone’s rant was a little … what’s the word? Weird? Surreal? Uncomfortable? And that’s kind of on par for Boone; even his now-famous “savages in the box” tirade felt a little bit like Joe Pesci on speed.
“Arguing with an umpire is like everything else in life,” Bobby Valentine says with a laugh over the telephone from California on Tuesday afternoon. “It takes practice. You kind of have to learn how to do it. It takes reps.”
The biggest culprit, undoubtedly, is replay. It has taken 90 percent of the would-be arguments out of the game because it’s impossible to work up a lather when all you have to do is look at the scoreboard to see the umpire was right — or wait five minutes before it’s confirmed that he was wrong.
That leaves the one thing that remains open for public debate, which is the home-plate umpire and his interpretation of the strike zone — and even that one’s on the clock. Once automatic arbiters replace umpires, will anyone really want to go nose-to-nose with a robot? Is it even possible to KO AI?
“Spontaneity is taken away because of replay,” Valentine says. “Subjectiveness is taken away. A lot of times classic umpire encounters are heightened because the fans are egging a manager on. But fans aren’t going to get excited if they see the replay and they know either the umpire or the manager is wrong.”
(Warning Adult Language)
Valentine may not have been in the inner-circle of all-time umpire baiters — a Mount Rushmore that must include Billy Martin, Earl Weaver, Bobby Cox and Tommy Lasorda — but he’s sure at the next plateau of the range. And as he can tell you, it isn’t a skill naturally honed. He wasn’t thrown out once as a player in 10 years and 639 games.
He wasn’t ejected until Aug. 13, 1983, when he was coaching third base for the Mets, and he and Keith Hernandez, taking a lead off third, tried to goad the Cubs’ Rich Bordi into a balk. Umpire Bruce Froemming tossed Valentine, citing Rule 709j, which prohibits a coach from leaving the box to distract a player.
“He said, ‘You broke a rule,’ and that was it,” Valentine says. “I had my baptism under fire.”
It was later, managing the Rangers and then the Mets, that Valentine began to understand the nuance of proper umpire debate.
“I don’t think things are as choreographed as they used to be,” he says. “I think Billy, Lasorda and definitely me had kind of a dance, a way to go about it, engage in conversation.
“Controlling your emotions has to be learned. Slowing down before you get to the umpire, always important because engagement was the key. I never wanted to go out there and be ignored. Somehow, you want to get their attention but you try to do that without saying any magic word at the beginning. That’s the performance part before the curtain comes down.”
It was rarely personal. A lot of times it seemed like Valentine was emptying each of Carlin’s Seven Words in a rush when all he was asking was, “How much more time do I have?” before the ump would raise his thumb. The same guys you were screaming at on Tuesday would just as likely buy you a beer in a hotel bar on Wednesday.
“Though not always,” Valentine says. “Earl Weaver and Bill Haller, one hated short guys and the other hated tall guys. They weren’t going to drink together.”
It doesn’t seem likely that Boone and Diaz will be any time soon, either. Blame the game one last time.
“Now, a lot of times, the ump ejects a guy when he’s in the dugout,” Valentine says. “So the manager is just going to get his money’s worth.”
He laughs again.
“And what’s the fun in that?”