“They’re two of the best teams in baseball. Why are they playing the slowest? It’s pathetic and embarrassing.”
– Umpire Joe West, as told to the Bergen Record.
West’s comments are meant to defend his colleague, the widely reviled Angel Hernandez, for not granting time to several Yankees and Red Sox during Tuesday’s game in Boston.
I watched, and it did look weird to see Hernandez denying Derek Jeter time. How dare he! Then again, it looked pretty weird to see so many Yankees and Sox calling time so frequently, but I wasn’t sure if I was just noticing it more than I normally would because Hernandez wasn’t granting it, so I was paying attention.
Either way, West’s probably right. I’m not sure if the Yankees or Sox step out of the box or more frequently than any other teams, but if he and his crew are under the gun to speed up games, then by all means, deny Jeter his precious batting-glove adjustment time.
It’ll ameliorate all the sportswriters who are so bent out of shape about the length of the games, at the very least.
It does, however, fly right in the face of something Cowboy Joe West himself says on his spoken word album about baseball, Diamond Dreams:
It’s the only sport where you can manage right along with the manager. In no other sport can you do that.
You can’t do it in basketball, because you don’t know what play they called.
And in football, as soon as the ball is snapped, everybody’s running into each other.
But in baseball, it’s all pretty, and it’s all out there for you to see it.
And this game’s not run with a clock; it can last forever.
More importantly, umpire Joe West has a spoken word album. I’m obviously buying that.
UPDATE: I really thought I’d be the first to bring to the blogosphere, or at least refresh to the blogosphere, news of Joe West’s musical exploits. But then, upon finishing this post, I went to my Google Reader and noted that Big League Stew beat me to the punch. Check that site out for more on this West thing.
Tedquarters 
During that Yanks/Sox snoozefest the other night, I flipped over to SNY to watch a Met Classic from August 86 and noticed that the hitters in 86 just stayed in the box for nearly their entire at-bats. No stepping out between every pitch like some players do now. Huge difference in the pace of the game.
I cannot stand Joe West.
I’m sorry that every now and then you have to work for more than 3 hours a day and the buffet gets a little cold.
I love how a pretty significant number of the responses to Joe West that I’ve come across involve fat jokes. Hilarious AND substantive.
I don’t mind a long game (hell I was glued to the long-ass Mets game last night until the end), but I don’t like a boring game. I watched two of those Yankee-Sox games, and they were dang boring in addition to being long. Just felt like nothing was happening for stretches of time.
Joe West has always been a bigger-than-the-game, arrogant d-bag. Whether it’s picking fights or holding grudges, he’s an embarassment to baseball.
And I know baseball isn’t basketball or hockey, but is it really crazy to expect your umpires to be in some kind of reasonable physical shape?
Besides the point I know, but isn’t his nickname “Country Joe West,” as opposed to “Cowboy Joe West.”
I’ve heard both, but his website is CowboyJoeWest.com, so I figured I’d go with that.
If you’d just gotten comfortable in the box and took what you thought was a nice swing, why would you want to go reset yourself by getting out of the box and start stomping around?
I don’t recall Joe Mauer calling the umpires out in the post game presser after that blown double call during the ALDS. I don’t recall other players and managers doing it either during the playoffs, despite having every right to do so. The umpiring has gotten markedly worse over the past year or so, shockingly so, so to hear an ump, I don’t care which one, criticize his meal ticket like this, it just says a lot. I’ve grown really tired of the number of umps that have injected their egos into the game. Every single thing they do should be in service to the game, and they should be seen, not heard. Hec, we wouldn’t even be talking so much about instant replay (outside of HR calls, which I do understand) if the umps weren’t so bad as of late.
It just seems to me that you’re talking about two of the most successful teams in baseball. Maybe more players from other teams should take time between pitches to focus themselves.
I’ve never been one of those people that complains about long games…it’s more game for your money.
To that end, Tom Boorstein has a lot to say.