Not everyone is piling on as Hernández retires

The sudden retirement of longtime umpire Ángel Hernández last week sent celebratory shock waves across Major League Baseball.

- MIKE WILNER

The 62-year-old, a big-league umpire since 1991, was consistently among the worst ball-strike callers in the game-though not the absolute worst, as his defenders have said. He always found a way to be in the centre of the biggest controversies in the games he worked. Hernández never shied away from the spotlight, often making his worst calls at the biggest moments in games. He made the game about him.

That, along with an incredibly short fuse for ejections, is why baseball fans know his name and why none of them are sad to see him go.

Blue Jays icon Jose Bautista never had much patience for what he perceived to be poor officiating back in his playing days. In 2013, upset with umpire Jeff Nelson's strike zone on opening day, Bautista dropped a quote for the ages.

"Sometimes I have trouble more than other players dealing with my production being affected by somebody else's mediocrity."

Succinct, beautifully put and absolutely true. But now the slugger, second to Carlos Delgado on the Jays' all-time home run list, wishes he had kept those specific sentiments to himself.

"I was pretty intense as a player.