Two Mexican Baseball League umpires have been suspended after the duo collaborated on one of the worst calls in the history of the sport. And no, that is not an exaggeration.
Thoughts of terrible calls undoubtedly plague the mind of most baseball fans, but for those cheering on the Diablos Rojos del Mexico, they can now stake claim to being victims of the most ludicrous call of all-time.
With Algodoneros de Union Laguna’s Jonathan Jones in the hole 0-1, he adjusted his approach and in an attempt to protect the plate, took a weak hack at a 91 MPH fastball.
Simple enough, right? Only, the home-plate umpire, Ulises Domínguez Solís, somehow missed the swing and called it a ball. That, of course, was immediately protested by Diablos Rojos del Mexico, yielding a check with the first-base umpire, Rodolfo Pastrana Tejeda.
Remarkably, Tejeda apparently missed the swing as well and confirmed the pitch was a ball.
worst umpire call ever pic.twitter.com/feKHA03tzA
— Routine Baseball (@RoutineBaseball) July 19, 2018
Yahoo! Sports reports that the two umpires were suspended for the remainder of the season immediately after the game.
The two umpires in the video were suspended by the league for the rest of the season. The other two umps in that crew were warned by the league after not overruling the call.
That’s a harsh punishment, but the call was egregious.
It’s possible that both umpires simply missed the swing, but that seems hard to believe.
In late June, Major League Baseball banned all transactions with the Mexican League over corruption and fraud allegations, specifically in terms of how contracts were negotiated.
