When I met NFL referee Mike Carey last season, I was introduced to him as one of his biggest fans. He smiled and shook my hand. Then he said, “You need to get out more.”

He’s right. For whatever reason, I’ve long been obsessed with sports officials.  Fans have favorite players, and so do I. But I also have favorite officials. I watch Carey-officiated games and root for penalties just to hear his explanations. Before Ed Montague retired as a baseball umpire, I watched his games praying someone would strike out looking so I could see him ring the batter up. (The best way to describe that call is a “Get the [expletive] out of here!” gesture.) My dream tennis match? One in which chair umpire Steve Ulrich uses his sonorous voice to announce the scores in a tiebreak.

Officials have the most thankless job this side of those who work in lost baggage at an airline. (As Bill Engvall and Jeff Foxworthy pointed out in a larger bit about “stupid people,” no one ever walks by the lost-baggage department and says, “Got all my bags. Thanks!”) Officials have it the same way. They get all the scrutiny of the athletes but none of the rewards. If they have a great game, they remain anonymous. Sometimes a color commentator will say, “Wow, that’s a great call right there.” But usually he won’t.  They can’t win; they can only not lose.

Officials need to be celebrated, but they’re cast as villains before they even do anything. As Bruce Weber points out in his book, As They See ‘Em, fans routinely boo umpires at baseball games before they even take their positions. Then they’re booed some more during the game and screamed at by the grown men they’re charged with regulating. Everyone thinks he can do a better job than an umpire. Almost everybody is wrong.

None of this is to say there aren’t bad officials. I wouldn’t want to play in an NBA game overseen by Bennett Salvatore. Nor do I think much of the umpiring crew that somehow includes both Joe West and Angel Hernandez. Umpire Bob Davidson and plenty of others could tone down their confrontational habits. But just as Luis Castillo helps us appreciate the value of Chase Utley, umpires like those help accentuate the great umpires, like Tom Hallion and his right-guttural-twist-uppercut strikeout call.

Besides everything else, how can anyone not appreciate the great names of umpires? Tim Tschida and Tim Timmons – on the same crew? Chuck Meriweather? Nice. I know of only one man named Fieldin, and that’s Fieldin Culbreth. Other favorites include Laz Diaz, Kerwin Danley, Hunter Wendelstedt (son of former umpire Harry Wendelstedt) and Dana DeMuth. The Triple-A fill-ins, those next in line for full-time gigs, have some promising names as well: Todd Tichenor and Mike Muchlinski, to name two.

I don’t think universal love of officials is going to catch on soon. Few people are going to adopt my habit of checking the umpires of each game right after learning the pitchers. But maybe – even in this era of high-definition replays and ever-increasing hatred – people could learn to keep an open mind. For all the replays that show a mistake by an official, there are a half-dozen more that show a call he got right or a call that isn’t clear even when the footage is slowed down.  Just wait until they make a mistake before saying, “Kill the umpire” or “He sucks.”

Earlier this season, White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen said, “People pay to watch players play, not to see umpires and managers. I don’t know any people that say. ‘I want to see Ozzie Guillen manage or I want to see Joe West [expletive] umpire.’” I agree. I don’t want to see Joe West [expletive] umpire or Ozzie Guillen manage. But there is a long list of officials I would pay to see. As a friend put it, “I head out to the ballpark when Dan Iassogna comes to town.”

He was kidding, but put in a different umpire and I would have taken him seriously. I think I do need to get out more.

Tom Boorstein has never eaten at Taco Bell but does write for MLB.com and SNY.tv. You can read his thoughts on the Yankees here and follow him on Twitter here.

Tragic news in the dinosaur field: the dinosaur we know as triceratops may have never existed:

This extreme shape-shifting was possible because the bone tissue in the frill and horns stayed immature, spongy and riddled with blood vessels, never fully hardening into solid bone as happens in most animals during early adulthood. The only modern animal known to do anything similar is the cassowary, descended from the dinosaurs, which develops a large spongy crest when its skull is about 80 per cent fully grown.

Scannella and Horner examined 29 triceratops skulls and nine torosaurus skulls, mostly from the late-Cretaceous Hell Creek formation in Montana. The triceratops skulls were between 0.5 and 2 metres long. By counting growth lines in the bones, not unlike tree rings, they have shown clearly that the skulls come from animals of different ages, from juveniles to young adults. Torosaurus fossils are much rarer, 2 to 3 metres long and, crucially, only adult specimens have ever been found. The duo say there is a clear transition from triceratops into torosaurus as the animals grow older. For example, the oldest specimens of triceratops show a marked thinning of the bone where torosaurus has holes, suggesting they are in the process of becoming fenestrated.

I’m sorry, but I find this news completely unacceptable.  First, look at a picture of a torosaurus. It looks like a giant fat armadillo with an oblong shield on its head.  The torosaurus looks weak and uninterested, like a dinosaur that is constantly being bullied for its lunch money and is always picked last for dinosaur dodgeball.

Now look at a picture of a triceratops.  The triceratops, with its long horns and protective armor, looks like a tank with legs.  When I was a kid, the triceratops was always considered to be the second most bad-ass dinosaur around, and was the only dinosaur that could give the T-Rex a run for its money, even if it was a herbivore and thus had no real reason to fight the T-Rex.

Now I’m supposed to believe that the triceratops is merely the teenage version of this fat mush mess called the torosaurus?  I don’t think so.

Granted, no human being has ever seen a real triceratops.  It’s possible, probable even, that our image of the triceratops comes from artist renditions, not from any solid facts.  The skulls found by archaeologists, which are definitely cooler than that of any other dinosaur skull, may have expanded the legend of the triceratops well beyond its actual role in the dinosaur kingdom.  After all, archaeologists have known for years that the triceratops was a mostly docile animal who ate plants.  There have even been recent findings from archaeologists that suggest that the triceratops’ shield was not used for defense, but for display and courtship, not unlike a cast member of Jersey Shore wearing a Christian Audigier t-shirt.

But I’m still not buying it.  I am laughing in the face of scientists who know far more than I ever will about this subject.  Much like Jon Heyman and Bert Blyleven, scientific evidence beyond any shadow of a doubt does not sway me even a little bit.  As far as I’m concerned, the triceratops used his horns and shield to wreak wonton havoc across the Pangaea, and certainly was no relation to the sluggish, disinterested torosaurus.  I’d rather go Carl Everett on this subject and not believe in dinosaurs at all than believe anything less.

For more out of me on subjects that are decidedly non-dinosaur related, you can check me out at Blue and Orange or at my BBQ Blog, or you can check me out on Twitter.