I have to admit, I don’t like sports officials at the best of times. I believe that there is no one anywhere who can referee anything properly at anytime.
My battles with basketball referees, subjective sport judges (every subjective sport judge on the planet, doesn’t matter if it’s figure skating or gymnastics, is crooked) and hockey officials have become legendary and, for the most part, I’m not proud of many of them.
However, I have no remorse. Everytime I yelled at an official, he deserved it. Every technical foul I took, I rejoiced in it.
Among my favourite shots directed at umpires have come from baseball fans. Here’s one from a well-known New York heckler named Bill Ferraro. This was a man who hated umpires almost as much as I do: “Hey, Blue! How about using some Windex on that glass eye!”
And another: “Hey Blue! I’ve had better calls from my ex-wife!”
And one of the greatest of them all: “Hey Ump!!! Damn good thing you don’t have three choices!”
Ferraro’s heckling brilliance was first chronicled by the New York Daily News. The Daily News loved this one: “Hey Blue! Don’t ever think about donating your eyes to science. They don’t want ‘em!!!”
Then there was this classic: “Can I pet your seeing eye dog after the game!”
And this one: “Come on Blue!!! Pull the good eye out of your pocket!”
Oh yeah, and this one: “Lenscrafters called…they’ll be ready in 30 minutes!”
Now, that’s harsh. But true.
This past weekend, I sat in my big-ass easy chair and spent almost 20 hours screaming at the TV.
First of all, we got dreadful homeplate umpiring in the ALCS. I know EVERYBODY loves the Boston Red Sox, but you can only squeeze the strike zone so far until somebody notices. I noticed. I threw things. I really didn’t care all that much if Tampa won the ALCS, but the freakin’ homeplate umpires made me cheer out loud for the Rays. Good on ‘em, Tampa got screwed and still prevailed.
Not so for the Minnesota Vikings in Chicago on Sunday. A second-half pass interference call in the end zone that resulted in first-and-goal at the one instead of loss-of-ball-on-downs, fried my shorts. By no definition — and I am reading the NFL rulebook as I write — was that pass interference. Two players fell down. Period. It cost the Vikings the football game.
That call was so bad, in fact, it appeared as if the fix was in. If crooked NBA ref Tim Donaghy went to jail, that whole NFL officiating crew in Chicago yesterday should have been locked up. If was as if they all had the Bears on their Vegas parlay ticket.
Gawd, I can still smell that gas bomb.
Officiating in every sport is generally awful. Frankly, it should all be done in the booth, with video replay.