Good call: MLB, umps agree to five-year contract

Posted on December 24, 2009

Major League Baseball umpires picket and protest while being locked-out on opening day during a San Francisco Giants game at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California in 1995. (Photo by Brad Mangin)

 

Major League Baseball and the World Umpires Association agreed to a five-year contract yesterday that runs through 2014. This new agreement will keep peace between the two sides as everyone tries to forget the failed mass resignation in 1999 led to 22 umpires losing their jobs. The umpires’ current deal had been set to expire Dec. 31, 2009.

“I think both sides acted very professionally in trying to work through a tough time, and we ground it out,” said World Umpires Association president Joe West (see above), who lost his job in the 1999 dispute and regained it three years later. I remember hearing over the summer that the umpires contract was coming up and I wondered what would happen. There were so many butchered calls in the post season, especially during the Red Sox vs. Angels ALDS Series, that I figured MLB might come up with new demands for the upcoming contract, especially when it comes to post season assignments for the men in blue.

I remember covering the 1995 lock-out of the Major League umpires during the San Francisco Giants home opener for Sports Illustrated (see top and below). The season started a few weeks late that season after the player’s strike of 1994 was finally resolved, and the Giants hosted the Florida Marlins on a cool and dark afternoon at Candlestick Park in front of only 26,403 fans. I spent time both before and during the game shooting a large group of locked-out umps as they picketed outside the ballpark, then walked around inside the stadium as a sign of protest. The umps finally reached an agreement with big league officials a week later and ended their four-month lock-out in early May of 1995.

Much has changed since the umpire lock-out in 1995. After the Major League Umpires Association debacle in 1999 when the above-mentioned 22 umpires resigned (11 of whom have been reinstated). This was after 50 of the 66 umpires originally resigned as a negotiating ploy to move along collective bargaining. Some rescinded their resignations, but MLB ultimately accepted the resignation of 22 umpires, thus breaking that union. This was a real messy situation that basically allowed MLB to clear out the dead wood and keep the umpires they wanted in the game.

I think the game of baseball has the best officials overseeing their games of all the major team sports in the United States. The big leauge umps are full-time employees who are well-compensated for the work they do. They are not part-timers like the NFL referees who sell insurance during the week. I photograph close to 100 games a season from the field level so I am able to see the game much closer than most fans. Let me tell you- these guys are good.

The advent of instant replay to help make calls on home run balls that are too close to call near the outfield fences and foul poles was a great advancement for the game in 2008 as both the league and the umps try to get the calls right and take advantage with high-defenition television technology. Sure, every once-in-awhile the fans will hoot and holler at a close call that appears to be missed on the bases, but most of the time these guys get it right. The few times they miss a bang-bang play at first base it requires an HD video replay broken down in super slow-motion to prove they are wrong.

The new agreement can’t bring former National league umpire Eric Gregg back (see above) but it will do a lot as the two sides continue to work together to make sure the men in blue get it right even more often in the future.