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Roger Mooney

Roger Mooney covers the Tampa Bay Rays for The Tampa Tribune, TBO.com and News Channel 8. He has covered the Rays since their first season in 1998, including 11 years for the Bradenton Herald. Roger has also covered Florida, South Florida and Florida State football, the Bucs and the Lightning.

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Maddon takes one for major league managers everywhere

Posted Jun 2, 2010 by Roger Mooney

Updated Jun 2, 2010 at 01:58 AM

ROGER MOONEY
TORONTO It was umpire Angel Hernandez who wouldn’t grant Carl Crawford timeout back in April during a game in Chicago, and it was Hernandez who wouldn’t grant Carlos Pena timeout during the Rays ninth-inning rally Tuesday at the Rogers Centre.

Notice a trend?

Hernandez did grant Pena a timeout earlier in his at-bat against Blue Jays closer Kevin Gregg, so maybe Hernandez wasn’t going to give Pena two.

Hernandez also works on the same umpire crew with Joe West, who has been outspoken about the pace of major league games, particularly Yankees-Red Sox games which ... drag ... on ... for ... ever.

West was also the umpire who nearly beat Maddon to the mound in Chicago the night before the Crawford Incident when Maddon was going to remove pitcher David Price.

So, when Pena wasn’t granted the timeout Tuesday and ended up helpless as strike three zipped by, Maddon had something to say to both Hernandez, who tossed Maddon from the game, and West, who was seen on TV asking Maddon, “What did I do?”

After the Rays rallied for a 7-6 victory, Maddon had this to say:

“I was kind of annoyed with the fact the timeout wasn’t permitted. I’m all for supporting league policy, but when it comes to speed up rules in those kind of situations, I think they can basically be thrown in the trash can. It’s inappropriate. There’s no such thing as a speed up rule in that part of the game, and that was my argument.”

Maddon said he was standing up for the rest of the managers.

“First of all, I’m going to say this, I really like Angel a lot. I think he’s a good umpire. I think he handles all situations well, but I just needed to make a stand right there,” Maddon said. “I felt it was necessary, not only for me, but for all teams, to make a stand in that situation. Again, it’s about playing the game right. It’s about being fair on both sides. It’s about doing the right thing. And to permit the pitcher to have an unfair advantage in that moment I think is wrong, and to not permit timeouts in that moment I think is wrong. I do. I can understand make commercials less long, if you want to put it that way, but when the game is on the line, don’t permit the game decided by the fact that you’re not permitted to call timeout.”

Is West and his crew picking on the Rays? Picking on Maddon?

Who knows.

We know White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen is not a fan of West, who in his spare time, cuts Country-Western CDs.

Batters should be granted time to get ready, especially in key situations, just like the pitcher always has the right to step off the mound.

Can a batter step out too many times? I think so.

Maybe baseball should make a rule where a hitter is only allowed to step out twice per at-bat.

That could speed along a game, but would be tough to legislate.

How are you going to prove that a batter doesn’t have something in his eye? If you check, he has his timeout.

I wonder if DiMaggio encountered these kinds of problems?