This column originally ran in The Standard-Times on May 24, 2015.

By Nick Tavares
Pʀᴇsᴇɴᴛ Tᴇɴsᴇ

This has been a great week to dream for a future of emotionless robot umpires.

Say what you will about the jarring aesthetic about hulking machines calling balls and strikes. At least they wouldn’t be out to turn games into ridiculous displays of authority.

Let’s take a look at umpire Marvin Hudson, who decided to throw Bryce Harper out of a game for reasons no one can quite understand.

Hudson was hearing it from manager Matt Williams and the rest of the Nationals bench about his strike zone. So when Hudson decided they’d stepped out of line, he did his best Leslie Neilson impression, took off his facemask and made a big show of stepping out from behind the plate to tell Williams and company to shut it.

This was when Harper stepped out of the box. Taking a moment to let Hudson swing his stuff around and let everyone know who was boss, Harper walked away from the plate. It was at that moment that Hudson decided he was tuckered out, and ordered Harper back in the box.

Apparently, he didn’t get there fast enough (I’m guessing), and was tossed. A livid Williams soon followed. Watching the replay, announcers for both the Nationals and Yankees were stunned. Hudson sure showed them.

I’m sure the game was protected for future generations because of all this.

A couple of weeks ago, Cubs manager Joe Maddon was ejected for speaking out when D.J. Reyburn was squeezing a trio of Cubs rookies. Kris Bryant, Addison Russell and Jorge Soler were being given the “welcome to the show” strike zone and walked away quietly. Maddon let Reyburn know how he felt from the bench and was tossed.

“I had enough, I had enough, I had enough,” Maddon said after the game. “It was the whole game. It was egregiously bad. You cannot permit that to happen. We played a veteran club with a veteran battery, and we’ve got guys who’ve barely had a month in the big leagues, and I’m not going to take it. Our guys deserve equal treatment.”

Going back through the pitches in BrooksBaseball.net shows that the young Cubs were being squeezed more than the veterans. The idea of an umpire being able to dictate such an important part of the game at their whim is annoying at best.

Late White Sox owner Bill Veeck has a line in his 1962 autobiography, “Veeck — As in Wreck” about umpires that has always struck a chord:

“The umpires have become sovereign entities, are arbitrary, officious and, worst of all, pompous. They should be reminded every payday that they have been placed out there on the field, like the bases, only to keep the game going.”

Veeck was a natural showman and not averse to the spotlight himself, but he’s right. At their best, umpires merely blend in with the scenery, making all the calls they’re paid to make and letting the players decide who wins.

At their worst, they’re throwing people out of games to remind everyone who’s really in charge.

Hudson and Reyburn are relatively new names thrown into the usual pool of uppity umpires — Joe West, Angel Hernandez, John Hirschbeck and so on. That those names are that well known for this reason is part of the problem.

This is not an exhaustive list because it’d be impossible for one person with a full-time job to track the misdeeds of all the hypersensitive umpires across the majors. They’re out there every day, some with strike zones worse than others, reminding the players who’s really in charge, despite all evidence and reason to the contrary.

There’s simply no need for this group of people to constantly reassert themselves. Managers and batters complain and most don’t cross the line.

Most players and coaches go out to implement hours and hours of preparation, to play a game a lot of people spend a lot of money to see, and the umpires are there to make sure it all runs smoothly.

If they can’t keep the game moving, maybe it’s time to remind them that they can be replaced.

Nick Tavares' column appears Sundays in The Standard-Times and at SouthCoastToday.com. He can be reached at nick@nicktavares.com