Okay, so, let’s talk about Angel Hernandez. Man, where do I even start with this guy? I mean, I’ve been following baseball my whole life, and this umpire has been a topic of conversation more times than I can count. A few days ago, I was watching some highlights, or lowlights, rather, of this guy’s calls, and it’s just mind-blowing.
So I started looking into it a bit more. I grabbed my laptop, fired up the browser, and started searching for some videos. There are tons of compilations online that show some of his most, shall we say, “questionable” decisions. There was one from a game a few years back where he called a strike that was clearly a ball, and the batter was just stunned. I remember watching that live and yelling at the TV!
I then moved on to reading some articles. Some sports media sites have rated him as the “most hated” or “worst” umpire in professional baseball. Some fans even celebrated when he announced his retirement a few days ago. Can you believe it? It’s wild to think that an umpire can cause such a strong reaction from people.
Here’s what I did next:
- Watched Videos: I spent hours watching videos of his calls. Some were hilarious, some were infuriating. It was like a bad movie that you can’t stop watching.
- Read Articles: I dove into articles and blogs about him. It’s interesting to see how much has been written about one single umpire. And boy, people don’t hold back their opinions.
- Checked Stats: I even found some stats on a site called Umpire Auditor that said he missed 161 calls in just 10 games in the 2023 season. That’s just… wow.
But here’s the kicker: despite all the hate and the reputation for being the worst, some internal reviews by MLB apparently showed that he wasn’t actually the worst in terms of accuracy. He was ranked somewhere between the 60th and 70th best out of around 85 to 90 umpires. I mean, he’s still not great, but it’s not the absolute bottom. Still, though, the sheer volume of controversial calls is something else.
After digging around, I found out that Hernandez retired this May. Thirty-three years in the majors, and he’s probably more known for the bad calls than the good ones. I read his statement about retiring, something about living out his childhood dream of umpiring. It’s a bit sad, in a way, to see a career end like this, but man, those calls were something else.
So yeah, that’s what I’ve been up to. It’s been a wild ride looking into all this stuff about Angel Hernandez. It just goes to show you how one person can really stir things up in a sport. I’m just glad I’m not the one making those calls, that’s for sure.
