One had to expect the New York Mets would look to exact some revenge against Chase Utley after his takeout slide during the postseason. Last night, Noah Syndergaard was ejected after he threw behind the Dodgers second baseman.
Noah Syndergaard was ejected in the third inning of the New York Mets game against the Los Angeles Dodgers on Saturday night for throwing behind Chase Utley. Syndergaard’s ejection altered the course of the game and put the fate of the game into the hands of a young, inexperienced umpire.
Baseball is perhaps the only sport in which the officials have a constant impact on the game. That is one of the reasons it is such a beautiful game. Unfortunately, underneath this beautiful façade, is a vile and dangerous monopoly of power. When you look at the amount power that is held by an umpire in a baseball game, especially the home plate umpire, it can be quite troubling.
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This unsettling feeling was brought to the fore front on Saturday night when Mets ace, Noah Syndergaard was ejected in the third inning for throwing behind the second baseman of the Dodgers, Chase Utley. Syndergaard received no warnings and was tossed before the ball had even hit the backstop.
Third year umpire, Adam Hamari exercised his power and some would say duty, in throwing Syndergaard out of the game. To many fans of baseball, including myself, this was a clear case of an abuse of power by an umpire who has not been in the league for three complete seasons. Hamari would be easily forgiven if he had issued a warning to each team following the incident and went on to officiate the game as usual. By ejecting Syndergaard on the spot without as much as a stern talking too, he has abused his position as a Major League Baseball umpire and egregiously altered a game that had the promise of being premier pitching matchup.
In addition to Syndergaard, Mets manager, Terry Collins also caught the ejection bug as he made his opinions known to Hamari. Collins’ reaction was one of the more animated discussions he has had with an umpire in his time in Flushing. At one point, he had to be physically restrained as he voiced his grievances that were undoubtedly filled with obscenities to Hamari.
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The totality of power that a Major League Baseball umpire holds in any given game, is surprising and shocking. They have the power to eliminate the part a player has in a game in a second. More times than not, there will be a very good reason for this type of action. However, every so often, there will be an instance in which they abuse this power and eject a player who had no business being ejected. This was the case in the game on Saturday night.
Syndergaard was in no way completely in the right. He intended to send a message to Utley. The history between the two teams is well documented. It is also very fresh in the minds of Met fans, and obviously players. Was it the smartest move by Syndergaard? No. It was Utley’s second at bat of the day. He had already struck him out prior to the third inning and there was no real reason to ‘retaliate’.
Following their NLDS victory, it could be said that any ill grievances were worked out. Obviously this was not the case.
To a typical baseball fan, it would seem as if Hamari went into the game with a preconceived
notion that if anything even remotely menacing happened, he would be quick to toss the offending player. Umpires have a duty to understand the flow of a game and the feelings between two teams. They have a duty to understand any ill feelings that are felt between the teams competing. Hamari obviously knew about the ill will between the Mets and Dodgers. His fault was in his execution of his preconceived ideas.
This scenario fly’s in the face of another decision made by Major League Baseball umpires earlier in the week.
Earlier this week, Toronto Blue Jays third baseman, Josh Donaldson was thrown at twice in a row by Minnesota Twins pitcher, Phil Hughes. The pitches had a clear message: retaliation for an
incident that occurred earlier in the series. However, in this instance, Hughes did not receive so much as a warning. The series had much more animosity than the current Mets-Dodgers series and the umpires reacted in the absolute opposite way of Hamari,
Major League Baseball needs to develop a uniform understanding of when and how to police these types of issues. It’s a difficult task, as baseball is a liquid sport that is always changing. However, it must make an attempt to develop a clear and uniform understanding by the umpires of what warrants an ejection and what does not, based on the circumstances of the game at hand.
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This will be a slow process, as everything in baseball is, but the issue needs to be addressed in the offseason so a scenario like that of Saturday night is not repeated.