Fire Ed Rapuano Now! (Updated With Video.....Sort Of)

As with all sports, baseball umpires are going to make bad calls that people won't agree with. However, there is a difference between bad calls and the utterly ridiculous and absurd. Today at Citizens Bank Park there was perhaps the most absurd call that an umpire has ever made in all of baseball. Okay, maybe that's a bit of an overstatement (see Denkinger, Don), but Ed Rapuano, the home plate umpire of the game, most definitley has it out for Philly fans and while it's hard to say that an umpire cost you a game that ended up being 12-3 Florida, one could make an argument that Rapuano did that today. The fiasco started in the bottom of the 6th inning when the score was just 3-1 Florida with 2 outs, 2 men on, and Ryan Howard at the plate staring at a full count. The pitch by Josh Johnson was low around the knees, but Rapuano called it a strike, ending the inning and the Phillies rally. Now that was a bad call.

What happened in the next inning would venture into the utterly absurd and ridiculous. Rodrigo Lopez threw a pitch the same spot that Johnson did to Howard in the top of the 7th inning. Rapuano from home plate then pointed to Shane Victorino, who was in centerfield, and ejected him from the game! Victorino's crime: he threw his arms up in the air at the obvious contradiction from the umpire. That's it. Nothing more. Nothing less (or at least nothing that anything indicated and I doubt Rapuano would have detected anything other than that; he was 200 feet away) The home plate umpire, from home plate, threw out the Phils centerfielder, who was in centerfield, for lifting his arms up at an obvious contradiction of ball-strike calls.

And that was just the start of it. Some Phillies started coming up and questioning Rapuano for his absurd and hasty decision to throw out Victorino daring to throw his arms over what he felt was bad umpiring, and then all of a sudden Victorino flies through that mob and started getting in the face of Rapuano. He had shoved Paul Bako out of the way and was in the face of Rapuano and may have literally been a half a second away from actually striking him (at which point, I think Victorino would have become the most popular Phillie of all time) until Bako and Howard were able to gain control of him before Victorino could land himself a suspension (although no one in Philly would have cared about that then). The rest of the inning was just a massacre as the Marlins hammered Rodrigo Lopez for 5-runs in that inning blowing the game open, something that the Marlins would continue to do for the rest of the game, hence the lobsided score. A score that does not indicate the decent performance put on by Jamie Moyer or the fantastic job that Tyler Walker did (Walker's actually been pretty solid for the Phillies) getting out of Moyer's mess which consisted of 2 men on and no one out in the top of the 6th and the inning ending still 3-1, the score of which it started.

And just reading the article on the game posted by MLB.com, the re-writing of history is already in progress. While it says that Shane Victorino was thrown out, no reason is given (I wonder why), but never does it say that Rapuano fucked up, things that would be apparent even to someone who has never watched baseball, and it does not say that Rapuano ejected him from behind home plate when Victorino was in centerfield, something that I don't think has ever happened before. I can't remember any other instance and Chris Wheeler, who celebrated a birthday today, could not recall any instance either of such a horrible, meaningless, immature ejection. Either Rapuano is a complete moron who does not know anything about baseball, or he knew he fucked up and decided that the best way to forget about the whole instance was to be a dickface about it and silence any and all doubters by ejecting anyone who dare challenge his "perfect" umpiring. Philly fans did get a small measure of revenge as he was booed and jeered for the rest of the game.

And not only are MLB playing the roles of history re-writers on the article, but thus far the only video that was posted of this on YouTube taken down less than 30 minutes after it was posted.

What Ed Rapuano did today was one of the worst, immature, absurd, ridiculous decisions that an umpire has ever made. Fire Ed Rapuano now! And if a video ever surfaces, trust me, I will get it to you as soon as possilbe. Check back frequently for updates.

Update: The abusrd has appeared to have just gotten absurder. Allegedly, Victorino was not even throwing his arms up at the umpire! From a fan comment on the above linked MLB article quoting someone from another forum:

"I was in sect 146 ( between Shane [Victorino] and Raul [Ibanez]) a drunken Idiot Fan started Yelling at Shane for hitting into a groundout, he was throwing his hands up and Victorino Responded, he actually kept on him, Victorino turned around but threw his arms up, Thats when he got tossed... All the Fans got on this supposed Phills fan, leading to he and his White Trash buddy both getting ejected.. I think thats why Victorno charged the Mound, thinking he wasnt even communicating w the UMP. If you were at the game or watching it on TV, you would have heard the fans getting on this idiot !!"

Update 2: MLB put up a highlights video with the Victorino incident in the highlights. And shockingly, they show most of what happened. You've heard my arguments, decide for yourself if it is a justified ejection.