Bill Hohn is cheating on Bobby Cox!
Calls, opener go L.A.’s way
cascreamindude: Ejections: Bill Hohn (9)
Ah, Billy Hohn. I think he’s the worst umpire in baseball. I will admit a bias — he has ejected nine people this year, and five of them are Braves (counting Bobby Cox twice). He is really the perfect storm of bad umpiring. He has a quick temper, and a quick trigger, he baits players, and above all he is bad at his job. You could deal with the rest if it wasn’t for that. Take for instance, this pitch plot:
The green dot was the third pitch of a four-pitch AB by J.D. Drew against Braves reliever Eric O’Flaherty. The count was 0-2; Drew took the pitch, which was, as you see, clearly a strike. Hohn, because he is bad at his job, called it a ball. Drew hit the next pitch off the wall in left field to give the Red Sox the lead. O’Flaherty, and Cox, were understandably upset. Hohn, as I wrote in my recap of that game, “went crazy” and ejected both of them and went up the third-base line to eject Chipper Jones as well. Ejecting a team’s best player when he’s standing sixty feet away is certainly going overboard. Later in the year, he ejected Cox and Brian McCann, the Braves’ other offensive star. McCann was upset when Hohn called a strike against him on a pitch that was a good foot outside; this came after spending most of the game calling a tiny strike zone. A glimpse — I haven’t studied in detail — of pitch charts from Hohn’s games shows that he normally does call a small strike zone, with many pitches that if not right down the middle are in the middle section of the zone called balls. This is the same game that ended with his now-infamous fist bump with Marlin catcher John Baker, which certainly gave the appearance of impropriety. Is it any wonder that I wrote that Hohn “seems to have a vendetta against the Braves”?
Mustaches ahoy!
Last night wasn’t a balls and strikes issue. He ejected Bruce Bochy for arguing about two calls at first base. I can’t find video, but in one instance it seems that the hitter beat the throw to the bag, and in the other that the first baseman both dropped the ball and came off the bag. Bochy was rightly furious; Hohn was his usual arrogant self. I wonder if the other umpires are getting fed up with having to defend him; note Gary Darling’s comments and actions in the “fist bump” story linked above. If the past is any guide, we’ll be dealing with Hohn again.
Awful Umpiring 
I’m still tempted to start a Fire Billy Hohn website and/or petition.
I don’t understand how an umpire can eject a team’s two best players and then fist bump an opposing player and keep his job. If that’s not biased officiating, what the hell is? What does he have to do to get punished by the commish, get caught taking a bribe from Hanley Ramirez at second base? How can a sport that takes such pride in a history of unbiased (though not necessarily competant) officiating let this fly? Head in the game, Selig.
I have to admit. I enjoy watching games that Hohn is working (as long as the Cardinals aren’t involved); it adds an element of suspense…..just knowing that he may screw up at any time and then serve to escalate the situation if the team he screwed argues with him….it makes games much more exciting.
I was going to say that Hohn has the temperament of an IRS agent but that might be an insult to IRS agents. One thing is sure, he’s a joke as an umpire and an embarrassment to the vast majority of them — they ought to be demanding his dismissal.
Whine, whine, whine. Don’t you ever tire of complaining about the umpires?
I find it amusing when you say the umpires are biased. Yet you never seem to cry when your team is winning, do you? Funny how that works.
Grow up.
Billy Hohn knows how to use the internet! He’s every bit as intelligent as I imagined.