The umpire, universally despised caller of bad calls. The master of the seventh inning stretch, the guardian of baseball's rules, the brunt of sick jokes. Major league umpires are seldom looked upon as having skill, other than knowing how to count to three, but just imagine all the chaos that would ensue if they weren't around. It wouldn't be devastating to the game because there are always other officials. In the day of the franchise players and money-hungry owners, the umpire could always be counted upon as a constant in the game…until September 2nd. On that fateful Thursday, 22 major league umpires lost their jobs, thanks in large part to the influence of union chief Richie Phillips. Phillips thought that umpires were being underpaid for their services, and he won most of his fellow officials over to his side and convinced them to go on strike if the demands for more money weren't met. As the weeks progressed, more and more umpires noticed that Phillips was becoming dictatorial in nature and they lost their faith in his abilities to get the job done as union chief. This resulted in more than half deserting his cause, and ended with the failed walkout in which only 22 out of 48 umpires actually left.
This did not help Phillips' cause, however, because Major League Baseball was able to hire 25 Triple-A (minor league) umpires to officiate games for the rest of the season, and perhaps for many years. In fact, many of the younger umpires are happy that they even got the opportunity to be big league umps, and could care less how much they make. This presents Major League Baseball with a host of possibilities should this same situation arise in the future, one that might even include replacing the whole staff every couple of years. If I were to venture a guess as to what will become of the people who walked out with Phillips, I think it would be pretty likely that they won't be returning to their spots behind the plate anytime soon because they did a good job alienating everybody involved. Some people not involved in baseball agree with Phillips that officials are underpaid, but most people, myself included, will still see them as losers that called it for the other team when their team could have won.
