MLB umpires out of touch with reality

It will go down in history as one of the worst labor decisions ever made. There is no one coming to the support of Richie Phillips, the head of MLB’s umpire’s union. The decision by Phillips for mass resignations by the umpires has lead to a third of them losing their jobs, a split in the union and a nasty legal battle to come if a settlement is not reached.

The fact that the umpires went along with their leader on the resignation idea shows just how far they are out of touch with reality. Major League Baseball has been trying for years to find a way to rid itself of a number of umpires it considers inept. The players are so upset with the attitude and performance of many of the umps that they took the unprecedented step of ranking the umps’ abilities in a published poll before the season.

The umpires never had a clue. Their overblown sense of themselves continued on. One player said to me last week, “They actually thought the game could not go on without them. No one is bigger than the game, especially not the umpires.”

At some point in this make-believe world, the umpires came to believe all the attention and power on the field actually made them indispensable. They were wrong. In fact, their growing abrasiveness that developed from this belief was making them more dispensable than ever. All MLB needed was a legal way to rid themselves of the bad apples, and there were many in its eyes. The action of the umpires’ union gave them their wish.

Now we have 22 umpires out of work come Sep. 2. MLB has hired 25 new umpires to begin work that same date. These new umpires are on the MLB payroll right now. The umpires’ union is seeking redress from the National Labor Relations Board and the courts. Individual umps will take court action to try and get their jobs back.

There is one legal argument that might favor the umps. When MLB accepted the resignations, it did not accept all of them. One would believe MLB was accepting or rejecting resignations based on work performance, to include attitude.

The union can argue that accepting some resignations and rejecting others brings the matter under the contract the umps have with MLB for the dismissal of umpires. The umps can argue that MLB could accept or reject the resignations in total, but once they started to select which ones to accept and reject, they were making firing decisions that can only be done under the process provided for in the contract.

Can any of these arguments be heard, much less decided, before September 2 when the new umpires start? Not likely. The mess gets messier.

Hall of Fame pitcher Tom Seaver is my partner in televising Mets games. “The current turmoil is not good for baseball,” Seaver said. “The people at MLB who are paid to oversee the game have to find a solution to this through negotiations. One can only hope that is going on behind the scenes now.”

Richie Phillips needs to resign his position now. He should do so, saying he made a monumental mistake and does not want the game or his people to unjustly suffer from it. The union should hire a new head whom they know MLB will work with. MLB should then negotiate a settlement that removes the truly incompetent from the umpiring ranks, and restores the others.

All of this needs to have been done yesterday. The umps are in a bad position and MLB may not let them up. The umps need to recognize this reality. They blew this call badly and the results will only get worse if they don’t get off their high horse and back on terra firma.

NEWS columnist Gary Thorne, an Old Town native, is an ESPN and CBS broadcaster.