Major League Baseball umpire Fieldin Culbreth is in hot water after messing up a call during a game between the Houston Astros and the Los Angeles Angels. Culbreth is in hot water because he and his crew allowed the Astros to make an illegal pitching change this past Thursday night. Angels manager Mike Scioscia immediately ran unto the field to contest the call. The umpires huddled together to discuss the issues and they all agreed that the Astros made a legal/fair move. Well the call was completely wrong and Culbreth was fined an undisclosed amount and suspended for two games by the MLB.
Astros manager Bo Porter was not aware of the MLB rule at the time. “Rule 3.05 (b) states: If the pitcher is replaced, the substitute pitcher shall pitch to the batter then at bat, or any substitute batter, until such batter is put out or reaches first base, or until the offensive team is put out, unless the substitute pitcher sustains injury or illness which, in the umpire-in-chief’s judgment, incapacitates him for further play as a pitcher.” At the time Porter thought that he was making a legal switch and said that it was an honest mistake. The day after the game when Porter found out that he was wrong about the rule he spoke to the public. “Me personally, I want to apologize to the whole crew, I stand corrected. Mike Scioscia was right. I feel bad I put the umpires in that position,” said Porter. “It’s an honest mistake, but it’s obviously a mistake that we look at in MLB and we don’t want to have mistakes like that,” said Porter.
The wrong call made by Culbreth and his crew was definitively a big no no. The other three members of Culbreth’s crew: Briam O’Nora, Bill Welke, and Adrian Johnson were also fined. Next season we will see some changes within the MLB particularly on the officiating aspect. For some reason baseball wont open up to using technology as a platform to make accurate calls, hopefully that will change over time, if there is a solution to a problem why not use it?
zericTv 