I’ll admit, I probably whine too much about bad officiating. I mean on Wednesday night I was throwing pillows at the TV after a call at first base in the Phillies-Cardinals game — and no, I didn’t give a rat’s ass who won or lost.
How a Major League umpire can call a player out at first when his entire body is past the bag when the ball arrives makes one wonder how the guy got the job in the first place. Frankly, if anyone complains about umpiring in the Northern League this season, I’ll just refer them to the Majors. There are now three-to-five downright rotten calls, on average, per game and the strike zone, well the strike zone is an outright joke. As bad as we all think the Northern League can be, our guys are no worse than the umps in the bigs.
However, as I complain about baseball, hockey and football (NBA officials aren’t officials, they’re game managers) I must admit that no referee in any sport anywhere in the world could possibly be worse than the guy in this story.
According to Eurosport Magazine, a 32-year-old Croatian soccer player named Goran Tunjic,, was given a yellow card by the referee for diving. Trouble is, he wasn’t DIVING, he was DYING.
That’s right, as the referee was flashing the card around the stadium, Tunjic, who had fallen to the turf, was laying on the ground dying of a heart attack. Eurosport reported that when the official finally discovered that the player was suffering a legitimate medical crisis, he called for medical help.
No word as to whether or not the referee revoked the yellow card.