Major League Baseball’s most unpopular umpire plans to retire at the end of the season.
CB Bucknor has accepted a buyout offer from the league and is calling it a career, according to Bob Nightengale of USA Today. Bucknor is one of seven umpires to accept such a package.
Longtime umpires Laz Diaz, Brian O’Nora, Lance Barksdale, Marvin Hudson, Tony Randazzo and Andy Fletcher have also decided to retire ahead of the 2027 campaign.
They might not say it out loud, but few will be sad to see Bucknor go. He has received an unwanted spotlight twice this year alone for poor umpiring. The first was a hilarious run of ABS challenges that went against him, while the second was a call so bad that both teams were laughing at him.
Bucknor has been umpiring at the MLB level since 1996, making him one of the game’s longest-tenured umpires. He has not actually worked this season since taking a foul ball to the mask in early April, which has sidelined him for health reasons for roughly three months.
