Hawk Harrelson whines about the umpires for the entire broadcast

[PunkinDrublic]

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.