Umpires Vow To Sit If Alomar Plays
Major league umpires voted Monday to boycott the baseball playoffs until Roberto Alomar’s five-game suspension goes into effect, umpires’ union head Richie Phillips said.
The playoffs are scheduled to start today, beginning at 10:07 a.m. PDT with the Cleveland at Baltimore game. The San Diego at St. Louis and Texas at New York games are set for later today.
“Our executive board voted unanimously to withhold services until the Alomar suspension goes into effect,” Phillips said.
Rich Levin, the spokesman for acting commissioner Bud Selig, said baseball officials will go to court today to seek an injunction that would force umpires to work the games.
“We’ll see what happens,” Selig said Monday night. “We’re just trying to work through this. I’m talking to all of our people. We’re trying to concentrate on the playoffs.”
A baseball management source, speaking on the condition he not be indentified, said Phillips may back down Tuesday if Selig issues a strong statement supporting the umpires.
Alomar, the All-Star second baseman of the Baltimore Orioles, spit in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck after a called third strike Friday night in Toronto.
After the game, Alomar said of the umpire: “I used to respect him a lot. He had a problem with his family when his son died - I know that’s something real tough in life - but after that he just changed, personalitywise. He just got real bitter.”
Hirschbeck’s 8-year-old son died three years ago from a rare brain disease. His 9-year-old son also is afflicted with the illness.
Alomar was suspended for five games by AL president Gene Budig on Saturday. Alomar appealed the penalty, keeping him eligible to play, and hit a 10th-inning home run that put the Orioles into the playoffs for the first time since 1983.
During the weekend, the players’ union said Alomar’s hearing is likely to held next spring, meaning he will be able to play in the postseason.
On Monday, Alomar issued an apology in a written statement.
That does not satisfy the umpires, however.
“What Alomar did was reprehensible,” said umpires’ union president Jerry Crawford, an NL umpire. “They think the apology ends it. But that doesn’t make up for it.”
“We feel strongly about this, enough that we took this action,” he said. “They have a disagreement with the level of discipline imposed by the league president,” said Gene Orza, the No. 2 official of the players’ association.
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