Umpires Irate Over MLB Background Checks

Major League Baseball is denying stories that it is conducting background checks on its umpires that involve sending investigators to hometowns and interviewing neighbors. Umpires are irate that their neighbors are being asked inappropriate questions such as whether the umpires belong to the Ku Klux Klan.

“The questions that we found out are being asked are about beating wives, marijuana use and extravagant parties,” said John Hirshbeck, president of the World Umpires Association. “And then finally with this whole thing about the Ku Klux Klan. You get someone from security, shows his credentials and starts asking these kind of questions, and right away, what’s the neighbor going to think other than the umpire is in trouble, he’s done something wrong and he’s going to lose his job.”

I can understand the need to do background checks as part of the hiring process. But if these allegations by WUA are true, then MLB is way out of line. Confirm work history and talk to references, if you must, but leave out the interrogation tactics.

The Umpire Strikes Again

Last July, I wrote about Ria Cortesio, a 30-year-old female umpire who worked the Futures Game and the Home Run Derby during the 2006 All-Star festivities in Pittsburgh. Cortesio just got assigned a new gig: working a spring training exhibition game this Thursday in Mesa, Ariz. between the Arizona Diamondbacks and the Chicago Cubs. This is her ninth year as an umpire, and her fifth year in Double-A, but it will be the first time that she will be working a game with a major league umpire. She hopes to move up to Triple-A this season; she’s next in line when a vacancy opens up.

So what do the players think about a woman ump calling a game? Derrek Lee of the Cubs loves the idea. “I think it’s about time,” the Cubs’ Lee was quoted in a Chicago Tribune article. “Female eyes are as good as male eyes. Why can’t they be umpires?”

My sentiments exactly.