Bob Davidson is an ass

It was a rough series for the Marlins, getting swept by the Phillies would usually be the only story, but the Marlins got railroaded by umpire Bob Davidson, who decided to add his name to a growing list of umpires under fire. In the first game of the series, Davidson took it upon himself to yell into the Marlins dugout after Cody Ross argued a called third strike. Allow me to restate that for emphasis, Davidson, in a play he was not involved in at all, took it upon himself to yell at a player. Remember, Davidson is not the crew chief either.

In the second game of the series, Davidson stopped play to yell at either a fan or into the Marlins dugout with the Marlins batting. Not quite sure what happened, maybe Davidson just wanted to remind everyone his ears were burning.

Tonight, Davidson turned in his finest performance of the series, blowing four separate calls at third base, the most significant of which literally cost the Marlins the game via a walk off win. To make it worse, Davidson did not back down despite conclusive video replay showing he was wrong, saying:

I'm right there. I know what I saw. I'm very confident I got it right.

Talk about exciting stuff! I've been to plenty of baseball games, I've seen all sorts of things, heck, even tonight I saw Hanley Ramirez basically play free safety and retrieve a ricochet off the left field wall and throw the runner out at third, but never, and I mean never, have I seen an umpire get the golden sombrero. Not even CB Bucknor.

Umpires have a very difficult job, they're asked to make split decisions on balls usually traveling in excess of 90 miles an hour. Fair/foul, out/safe, ball/strike. It's not as easy as it looks, I realize that. However, what is absolutely inexcusable is when umpires feel the need to assert their presence, to be larger than the game. As I've said before, when "Cowboy" Joe West has a publicist (and he does) there's something fundamentally wrong with the umpiring process.

That's really where the problem from tonight lies. Davidson not only blew the decisive call tonight, he's made a point of interjecting his presence throughout the series when it was never necessary. That he has the audacity to maintain he made the right call is even more problematic.