Hawk Harrelson whines about the umpires for the entire broadcast
 

White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson spent an entire game complaining about umpire Joe WestAaron Gleeman
Aug. 23, 2010, 10:15 AM ET
29 comments
White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson spent the bulk of yesterday afternoon's game complaining about home plate umpire Joe West, who he feels holds a longtime grudge against the team that led to the Royals getting favorable calls.

Harrelson talked about the umpiring for literally innings at a time and his broadcast partner Frank Thomas, who was subbing for a vacationing Steve Stone, frequently chimed in to agree.

After every close pitch that was called a ball for a White Sox pitcher or a strike for a Royals pitcher, Harrelson launched into another monologue about the umpires conspiring against the White Sox. He frequently used words like "disgusting" and "disgraceful" to describe the situation, and called it a "travesty" that West was even allowed to work White Sox games after his incident with Mark Buehrle earlier this season.

At one point Thomas noted that "back when I was playing" the catcher and pitcher would intentionally get "crossed up" on a pitch and let it hit the umpire, which seemed to be mostly a joke because a) Thomas laughed, b) "back when I was playing" was all of two years ago, and c) that rarely, if ever, actually happens. But then Harrelson liked the sound of Thomas' "idea" and suggested the White Sox actually do it to West.

Seriously.

Finally, in the 10th inning Jason Kendall broke a 2-2 tie with a walk-off single, winning the game and the series for the Royals and dropping the White Sox to 2-4 on their road trip, at which point the following exchange took place:

Harrelson: This is absolutely ... [five-second pause] ... this is absolutely not right.


Thomas: This really sucks.
As a Twins fan I quite enjoyed the whole broadcast, but I can't imagine many other people liking three straight hours of complaining about umpires and I can't imagine MLB liking announcers publicly calling for teams to intentionally injure umpires.

He gone

On a related note Joe West is now my favorite umpire.

I think I've heard more than one complaint about him from the Royals. Players always rank him near the bottom as far as his umpiring abilities.

when i tune in for that game i had to mute it a innng in Harrelson is just unbearable

That's the respect you get when you have a guy like Kendall behind the dish.

But seriously, he missed a couple obvious strikes on Grienke as well.

Baseball is so boring having to call it day after day after day would get old. I would probably find something different each day and harp on it the whole time. Mentioning scoring plays between rants.

Nothing makes my weekend like beating those bitches 2 out of 3 when they're in the playoff hunt and then reading this. What a bunch of victims. ROFL at those clowns.

Hawk is the worst announcer with the possible exception of John Sterling. It's too bad someone doesn't just punch both of them in the face repeatedly and then shove their heads into stadium toilets.

I was commenting about this to a few friends today. Hawk whined the entire telecast and really turned it on at the end. That guy is simply unbearable.

YOU CAN PUT IT ON THE BOARD

I would agree with you provided the stadium toilets were filled with antifreeze.

So you people down in the KC area, have to listen to him as well?

I thought only us poor saps in his viewing area had to put up with it. He used to be fun to listen to, seriously. He would even bring up the Royals successful tradition, back in the day, etc.

But now, he is just another boring sandy vag.

YES!

I think I'm going to setup a fake Hawk Harrelson twitter account so I can start herpes rumors.