He Is... The Most Hated Man In The World

"The first thing I said was that these were two of our best teams, but the pace that they play the game was pathetic and embarrassing. But everybody, especially the New York media, blew it out of proportion and said I was calling the teams pathetic. Some people said I had no right to single them out.

"I didn't single them out. I said they were both bad."

Never has there been such a stand-out, sought after umpire in the Umpire Fantasy League than Joe West over the past two or three years. Curt Schilling once said that often times, West acts like he would rather be anywhere in the world but on the field. He was once ranked the 4th worst major league umpire...by the players.

His most recent blunder came on Wednesday, when he ejected both White Sox pitcher Mark Buehrle and manager Ozzie Guillen. The ejection for Buehrle came after a second balk was called against him by West at first base. Buehrle, understandably upset, tossed his glove to the ground, and was immediately thrown from the game. Ozzie Guillen came storming out of the dugout after the ridiculous ejection, and got his money's worth out of West. In postgame comments, Buehrle said of West, "I think he's too worried about promoting his CD and I think he likes seeing his name in the papers a little bit too much instead of worrying about the rules."

So what'd Ozzie have to say?

"He's a f***ing ***hole. Sometimes he thinks f***ing people pay to watch him f***ing umpire. No matter what you say, what you do, how long you talk here, Major League Baseball doesn’t do s**t for anything."

Ozzie's exactly right. Buehrle wasn't trying to show him or, nor was he screaming over in West's direction or anything of the sort, so what the hell was West thinking. Let them play. Buehrle clearly didn't agree, so all West had to do was say, look, the way I saw it, you didn't step completely towards first. It's just because West is too dumb to think of that or to explain himself, so he took the easy way out. Mjor League Baseball is expected to issue a statement on West's possible disclipinary actions at some point today.