An Open Letter to Officials: Please Stay Out of the Spotlight

I am sorry to break this news to you people, but I think the world is coming to an end. That is the only explanation I can come up with for me agreeing with Chicago White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen. On Wednesday Guillen rightly went off on umpire Joe West. West ejected pitcher Mark Buehrle when he tossed his glove after West called a second balk on him. Now I don't blame West for running Buehrle, though he could have just let the little glove toss pass, I do blame him for ejecting Guillen, who was just there to keep his pitcher out of trouble. Instead West wanted to make it all a big scene and get his name mentioned again, in that I guess he was successful. After the game Guillen said, and I will paraphrase because Ozzie loves the curse words, the fans come out to see the players not the umpires. Truer words have never been spoken by Ozzie Guillen.

It seems once again to be trendy for umpires and referees to try and become part of the game and not just officiate. Let's look at the Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox game on Tuesday. Carl Crawford is up to bat and he disagrees with a strike call by umpire Bob Davidson. Crawford steps out of the box and starts jawing with Davidson, but instead of Davidson keeping his mask on and keeping his cool, he decides to get right in Crawford's face. in the end Crawford was ejected, along with his manager Joe Maddon. Players complain about pitches all the time, the key is for umpires to try and diffuse the situation not escalate it.

These things don't just happen in baseball. Wednesday night in game five of the Eastern Conference Finals the Celtics Kendrick Perkins was called for a technical foul for arguing a call, it was his second and he was ejected from the game. Perkins' reaction to the initial foul call was mild when compared to many others, and he was even clearly walking away from referee Joey Crawford, but that didn't matter and off to the locker room Perkins went. Once again the refs became part of the story. I was actually surprised when later in the game a concussed Glen Davis stumbled into Crawford, and Davis wasn't called for a technical foul.

Officials should strive to be like old time journalists, and not be part of the story. But alas just like there are very few true journalists kicking around, there are only a handful of officials that try to avoid the fray. Please don't get me wrong I understand they have a difficult job to do and that it is often thankless, but that is all part of the job description. The best officials are the ones we as fans don't notice, not the ones showing up on ESPN every night.