I mean, really

I don't know what part of this is worst! Starting from the beginning: last Friday night the umpire Doug Eddings was behind the plate for the game between St Louis and Colorado.

For whatever reason, he got a wild hair about the way that the Cardinals' rookie pitcher Hancel Rincon was wearing his hat while pitching. It was sort of cockeyed across his forehead, but facing the right way. Lots of guys have worn their hats that way. The Orioles used to have a guy (George Sherrill) who wore his hat right as it came out of the box, with a totally flat brim. They even called him "The Brim Reaper," but no one made a big deal of it.

Of course, as things tend to happen when people get off on power trips, things spun downhill fast. Eddings actually ordered the young man from the Dominican Republic to straighten out his cap. 

During the ensuing argument with St. Louis manager Oli Marmol, Eddings handed Rincon a pitch clock violation for not pitching during the specified time even though the umpire and the pitcher's manager were busy hollering at each other. 

 

And then the umpire made a dubious call that gave the Rockies the lead. Just absolutely inane. I guess that ump was just having manopause symptoms or something.

But I don't know that that was the worst of it, because on Saturday, someone calling herself Holly Baylor of "FAX Sports" wrote a tweet "reporting" that "MLB has suspended umpire Doug Eddings for the remainder of the 2026 season, including the entire postseason, following his controversial performance during Friday night’s Cardinals-Rockies game.

This did not turn out to be true, of course. But just as someone needs to sit down with Doug Eddings and tell him that his personal choices in millinery have nothing to do with the onfield hats of the ballplayers, someone somewhere needs to prevent "Holly Baylor" (if that is her name) from writing literal fake news stories.

And it's my personal feeling that every player in baseball should turn their brims 30 degrees toward their left ear for the next three games.

And that Doug Eddings should have to umpire whatever games he is assigned to for three days while wearing a complete clown outfit - giant shoes, rubber nose, red fright wig. If he needs to clean the plate, let him use a seltzer bottle spray.

UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE 

Eddings heard from someone - maybe his bosses at Major League Baseball, maybe his inner sense. Who knows? But he did apologize to the pitcher before the game on Saturday, a game in which all of the Cardinals wore their hats off-center.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that maybe Eddings came to his senses shortly after the whole thing started, but refused to back down. When that happens, you might as well back down right away.