Thursday, October 13, 2005 |
The Good Buddy
Doug Eddings is one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. He was a good friend during my days as a baseball broadcaster. But sadly, Eddings imploding on an important call was just a matter of time, which I'll detail in a moment.When you're a minor league baseball announcer, as I was for eight seasons, the umpires are golden for one reason: They have transportation on the road and you don't. So while I was beating the bushes, I befriended many an umpire, and Eddings was among them. In fact, he was probably my best friend among the umps.
We spent plenty of postgames chasing skirts and throwing back Jim Beam shots in places like Providence, Toledo, and Syracuse. Doug was a lot of fun to hang out with, which helped make him a very popular guy in the baseball/umpiring community - and was one of the reasons why he was destined to make the major leagues - unlike most of his minor league peers.
I'm confident in that assertion after having talked at the time to his fellow umpires and supervisors. All of them would tell you that Doug was destined for The Show - despite what were obvious on-field shortcomings.
But being promoted to the major leagues as an umpire shouldn't be a popularity contest. And with that in mind, Eddings is an example of what is wrong with the umpire business. He was given an opportunity based more on his connections and personality than ability.
Doug was always far from perfect on the field, even in the minor leagues. Witnessing major protestation over one of his calls is nothing new, and most of the time, the senior members of his crew have to be the ones to step in and mitigate the damage - which is what we saw last night in Chicago.
Who is that somebody? I'd like to meet him. :D
: 10/14/2005 11:04:00 AMNewer› ‹Older
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