It’s not often you see Major League Baseball criticize umpires or an individual umpire, as the league office prefers to downplay any mistakes or poor calls. But what veteran umpire Doug Eddings did on Friday during the Colorado Rockies-St. Louis Cardinals game apparently warranted such unusual treatment.
Eddings inserted himself into the game, apparently believing that fans buy tickets to see umpires, when Cardinals rookie reliever Hancel Rincon entered the game to make his major league debut. Rincon had his had tilted to the side, obviously not the traditional way to wear a baseball hat, but hardly anything exception or unusual in the modern game. Bizarrely, though, Eddings felt it necessary to instruct him to fix it.
Cardinals manager Oli Marmol was unsurprisingly furious, rushing out to defend the 24-year-old pitcher. Marmol could be seen telling Edings to “grow the f*** up” before getting tossed from the game, then went off about Eddings behavior afterward.
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“I had an issue with Doug,” he said to the media after the game. “Just Doug. He took it upon himself to tell our rookie pitcher the kid’s ‘not going to wear his hat on my field that way.’ You got Dontrelle Willis, CC Sabathia, Pedro Strop — plenty of guys that have worn it way more tilted. I have an issue with that. That’s just a power-hungry move, in my opinion.”
Eddings then defended himself by telling reporters that he’d made the decision to step in after a hitter from the Rockies complained about the hat.
“The batter said, ‘Hey, can he wear his hat like that?’” he explained after the game. “I really didn’t know, but it was really, really crooked. I asked the catcher to tell him to straighten his hat out, and the pitcher did. Nobody said anything until he gave up a couple runs.”
Except only one Colorado player had been up to the plate when the warning was issued, Hunter Goodman, who promptly denied he’d said anything.
“I never once mentioned the hat,” Goodman told reporters. “It doesn’t matter who’s pitching. I don’t care how they wear the hat. I’m trying to find out where the ball is coming out, and I’m trying to worry about what I’m doing in the box. I’m not worried about how his hat looks.
“It was one of those situations — it’s kind of a wild, wild thing that happens in the game. But I didn’t like seeing that my name was a part of it today when I didn’t say anything like that. You watch baseball growing up. There are a lot of guys who have had their hat crooked or however. Honestly, before today, when I went back and looked, I didn’t even notice the hat was messed up or looked like that when I was hitting. Anyway, I don’t pay attention to that stuff.”
From Rincon’s perspective, he addressed it by saying that Eddings had “apologized” to him and that he’d put the incident behind him.
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“I understood a couple words and it looked like he apologized to me for what happened last night, and he also told me good luck the rest of my career as a big leaguer,” Rincon said. “I told him don’t worry, it’s nothing personal, and everything stays here.”
Still, in a very obvious gesture, many Cardinals players wore their hats purposefully tilted in the dugout before Saturday’s game, and seemingly added a celebratory helmet tilt when reaching base.
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On Sunday, the Athletic reported that MLB had formally spoken to Eddings and told the veteran umpire he’d gone too far by telling Rincon to fix his hat.
Ken Rosenthal spoke to sources within the league about the incident, writing, “Umpires operate with broad discretion if they believe a player’s actions are distracting, but according to two people briefed on the matter who were granted anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, the league viewed Eddings’ admonishment of Rincon as going too far.”
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Frankly, it did go too far. Wearing a hat tilted a bit one way or another isn’t an offense, and as Marmol brought up, it’s hardly unprecedented. Is it every baseball fan’s preferred way for a professional to wear a hat? No, of course not. But it isn’t the type of infraction that warranted Edding’s reaction.
Maybe Eddings thought he heard someone from the Rockies complain about the hat and took it upon himself to say something? Or maybe he thought it was some sort of violation then had to backtrack afterward?
Regardless, Rincon pitched again Saturday, with his hat tilted to his liking. Eddings, still part of the umpiring crew over the weekend, let it go.