The lengthy racial discrimination lawsuit that Angel Hernandez and his representatives have hurled at the MLB is finally getting somewhere. A court ruling has decidedly put the odds of victory in the favor of the league.
First off, the original lawsuit accused MLB of holding Angel Hernandez back from World Series assignments and crew chief promotions due to his Cuban heritage. It also cited that he and Joe Torre- former manager and current Chief Baseball Officer- were embroiled in a long-standing feud. He claims that upon Torre’s arrival in 2011, his performance reviews greatly suffered, whereas they prospered prior to this.
In late 2018, the case was moved from Ohio to the Southern District Court of New York. After his disappointment with this news, reports indicate that Hernandez turned his focus to preventing MLB from subpoenaing his files from the MLB umpires union. These files would contain information such as performance reviews and complaints against Hernadez. His rebuttal is that he has a “labor relations privilege” that should keep these documents private.
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Such documents are vital because it not only would create reasonable doubt to Hernandez’s argument but could provide a basis as to why he did not earn privileges such as World Series games or a promotion. If his reviews are overwhelmingly negative and complaints are plentiful, MLB’s decisions would be perfectly logical.
Withholding these very documents would prevent MLB’s case from having any legitimate, concrete backing to reinforce their overall argument. Therefore, this appeal was a vital one for the case.
The ultimate ruling was a rather large one, as well. The court ruled in favor of MLB, thus creating the precedent that any communication between employee and union is not confidential. The odds have now been tipped in the favor of the league and an ultimately futile case from the start may be nearing its predestined conclusion.
There could never be a way that Angel Hernandez’s side could have proven there to be a racial bias against him. It just could not be justified considering the profuse criticism he receives from those within the league and outside of it. Even his superiors deem him not to be able to do his job properly on the biggest stage of all- the World Series.
Hernadez has had three of his four calls reversed in a 2018 ALDS game, he has ejected a player from a Spring Training game, and is routinely the fodder for the jokes of tweeters due to his particular reputation for an awful strike zone. These are a few examples as to why his reputation is so, yet the case is still within his grasp if those documents reveal something contrary to the expected.
However, that is truly unlikely due to his strong protestations against their admission to the case.