ML's 'worst referee' finally leaves as players shake their heads from Oncasinosite Net's blog
It's September 2nd of last year, and the Toronto Blue Jays are playing the Colorado Rockies. Ryu Hyun-jin (Hanwha), Toronto's starting pitcher at the time, had a rather bizarre experience in the bottom of the fourth inning with his team trailing 1-2.
Facing Nolan Jones, Ryu worked a full count and drove an 88.8 mph fastball into the strike zone. It looked like it should have been a strikeout. But the umpire surprisingly called it a ball, and Jones walked away with a “lucky” double. Ryu struck out the next batter, Elefuris Montero, to end the inning, but it was a bizarre situation.
The umpire at the time was Angel Hernandez, 62, who is often called the “worst umpire” in the majors. Hernandez made a total of 21 strike-and-ball errors for both teams that day.
Hernandez eventually announced his retirement.
On Aug. 28, major U.S. media outlets, including The Athletic and USA Today, reported that Hernandez had announced his retirement. According to these reports, the Major League Baseball office first advised him to retire earlier this year, and the two sides discussed issues such as remaining salary over the past two weeks before reaching a conclusion last weekend.
Born in Cuba's capital city of Havana and brought to the United States with his family when he was 14 months old, Hernandez is a 34-year veteran of the game, having made his major league 카지노사이트 umpiring debut in 1991.
But he has long been considered one of the worst umpires in the game, with inconsistent strike-and-ball calls, frequent blown calls, and too many ejections. In a 2010 ESPN poll, 22% of players voted Hernandez the worst umpire in the game.
Most notably, in Game 3 of the 2018 American League Division Series between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees, Hernandez had three of his calls overturned by video review, prompting former Yankee CC Sabathia to criticize him after the game, saying, “I don't understand why he umpires.”
It wasn't just on the field that he got into trouble; in 2017, he lost a lawsuit against Major League Baseball, alleging that he was discriminated against in personnel and game assignments because of his Cuban ethnicity.
Against the backdrop of Hernandez's abrupt retirement after the MLB office repeatedly urged him to do so, The Athletic quoted his lawyer as saying, “What hurt him most was the pain his two daughters and wife would suffer if they knew that the criticism was unbelievably unfair.”
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