These New Umpires in the MLB(2014) Need to Tighten it Up

Wikipedia has a list of current umpires and I don't recognize a whole helluva lot of them.
Some are vaguely familiar like #87 Scott Barry, #89 Cory Blaser, #94 Lance Barrett, #98 Chris Conroy, #51 Marvin Hudson and #2 Daniel Bellino but the majority of these guys are unrecognizable. And it has to do with their inability to call tag plays at the plate or distinguish a ball from a strike.

That and their ever-changing strike zone. Damn, when are the powers that be going to stick to the rulebook definition of what a strike is and have these improvisation artists adhere to said rules? How can someone just hired have so much leeway in how they do their job? Tighten it up, Powers That Be. It's an outrage!

Will Little, DJ Reyburn, Adrian Johnson, David Rackley,John Tumpane, Quinn Wolcott, Adam Hamari,Pat Hoberg, Chris Segal, Marcus Pattillo,Toby Basner, Gabe Morales, Tom Woodring, Seth Buckminster (got a thumbs down for his attempted at calling balls and strikes in both an A's and Giants game)Jordan Baker, Mike Muchlinski, Alan Porter (who did opening day at Dodger Stadium, so if you saw that game you saw how badly this guy stunk!!), Todd Tichenor, Manny Gonzalez, and finally Vic Carapazza (son-in-law of former AL ump Rich Garcia...so you see that favortism happens in the umpire ranks as with everything else on this planet)all need to be schooled on what a strike is and not leave it to their imaginations as to what is and what is not a strike. It is a head-scratching conundrum when you continually ask yourself who hired this guy? Balls and strikes are a struggle and his positioning on tag plays is giving him no chance to get the call right. Are the people who grade these guys going to take into account that these guys almost always have their calls overturned? Isn't that a reason to give them the boot? That and their willingness to put on some "rabbit ears" so that they can give a player, manager or coach the heave-ho, even though the player, manager, or coach is actually in the right for questioning the inaccuracy of the umps' call. Is anything these new umpires valid? I'd say as of April 22nd the answer is their ball/strike zones and ability to call tag plays are D- at best.

This and a few pitchers who seem to think they have the authority to slow the game down to a crawl is what is making the game of baseball drag to unwatchable proportions.


Kevin J. Marquez