The 2006 minor league baseball season has lasted six weeks so far. Pennant races are taking shape and career-defining seasons, for good or ill, are coming into focus.

But today, like every other day this season, every minor league game will be arbitrated by two or three anonymous guys. “Replacement umpires” they are politely being called, but the truth is many are amateurs in situations beyond their capabilities. Reports of all-too-frequent incidents -- some amusing, some shocking – reflect the level of incompetence of some of these fellows.

The teams cannot say publicly what they think. The managers and players are under threat of heavy fine if they express their true feelings. So heavy is the pressure, players and managers would be fined if they admit that they would be fined.

The last time I looked, Class AA baseball, which is the level being played in my hometown of Chattanooga, is considered professional baseball. These players are attempting to make a living just like the big leaguers, and the striking umpires aspire to the majors the same as the players. These replacement umpires aspire to make a quick buck and to remain unknown so that they can continue to make a quick buck without any repercussion save their own individual conscience.

Their anonymity is a joke. The leagues know who they are, and by extension the teams know who they are. Likely as not, the managers and their parent organizations know who they are. There’s also a pretty good chance that the striking umpires know who they are; early in the season, umpires on one picket line were spotting employing cell phone cameras during a game in an apparent attempt to get photos of these guys.

Just to be logical, is it not likely that the striking umpires, dressed up as ordinary fans, would bring a camera to the field, buy a box seat and snap away?

An umpire friend of mine, one who has not been contacted to fill-in, feels he could find out names with “two or three” well-placed phone calls. After all, the replacement guys are doing no favors to umpires who aspire to being professional umps some day. Maybe even more so than replacement players back in 1985, these fill-in umpires are men without a country.

Yet the newspapers play along. Baseball America, the voice of minor league baseball, plays along. The Associated Press has made no overt attempt to put a spotlight on these individuals who have done nothing to merit a cloak of anonymity. Even the umpire who was assaulted by Delmon Young’s thrown bat has not been identified. He is neither a minor nor a victim of a sexual assault; to afford him the same level of protection is an insult to those special groups.

By agreeing not to identify the replacement umpires, the newspapers, local and national, have basically decided to take sides. Put another way: if these were major league replacement umpires, could you imagine the New York Times or Washington Post or Rocky Mountain News giving replacement umpires a free ride?

Have the leagues threatened to pull credentials if papers opted to publish names? Not publicly. Just revealing that kind of blackmail, should it occur, would be sufficient to blow up that plan.

The strike drags on. The rank-and-file have, to the surprise of many, rejected one offer -- the replacements’ foul-ups tend to help their case. The sides may be back at the negotiating table again soon, but no one knows how long it is going to take.

But the minor league media needs to quit supporting the owners and teams by agreeing to their phony veil of silence. These replacement umpires should be identified on a nightly basis, just like the men they have opted to replace. They should be accountable for their screw-ups -- be it losing track of the outs, failing to know a rule or even having a hair-trigger thumb.

If the minor league clubs cannot find enough umpires to call the games under those conditions, their choices would seem to be clear. Either they can cancel the season (which their clubs would never tolerate) or they can pay the minor league umpires what they want and, by the way, deserve. It’s not millions; the additional amount each league would have to cough up would barely register on a big league club’s budget.

Nothing less than credibility is as at stake.

E-mail David Jenkins at
carty43@netzero.net