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Mr. Ocho is not happy with you, Blue. You are, ostensibly, not his boy.

After being just one victim of D.J. Reyburn’s penis tip-sized strike zone last night, Jonathan Papelbon had a few suggestions for what Major League Baseball should do with the triple-A call-up umpire. He thinks Reyburn should be fired or demoted.

"I said you know you messed that call up. And then I guess he was motioning for Charlie. [I said] I just want to ask you a question. I just want to ask you a question. And then the other umpire came over, he said what are you doing or whatever. I said I want to ask him a question. He wouldn’t let me even ask him a question. I wanted to know if he could throw me out for what I was thinking. I thought he was terrible. All day. It was not just that pitch, all day. I wanted to know if he could throw me out for what I was thinking. And if he could… I thought he sucked. I mean, it’s that simple.

He’s a triple-A guy.

Doesn’t surprise me. Doesn’t surprise me. Probably needs to go back to triple-A. That’s not a knock on him, that’s not a knock on the umpires. You’re up in the Big Leagues for a reason– to do a good job. And when you don’t do a good job, you should be demoted or fired. It’s just like anybody’s job. It’s just like like ya’lls job, it’s just like my job. If I don’t do my job, I go down to triple-A. You know? There’s just no room for that up here. Like I said, it’s not a knock on the umpires. It’s the intergrity of the game. You know? You want to be able to go out there and play the game the way it should be played. That’s it."

 

Ocho Cinco, or Papelbon (whichever one was talking there), should expect a fine from an enraged Bud Selig shortly.  

Papelbon isn’t wrong, however. Reyburn’s strike zone was minuscule all night, something you could even tell from where I was seated in section 306.  

The part that stands out to me, though, isn’t the fired and demoted portion of Papelbon’s comments– it’s the mind-fuck he was supposedly working when he approached Reyburn. I wanted to know if he could throw me out for what I was thinking. That’s some progressive shit right there. It’s like a guy talking to a girl in a bar, pretending to listen, but really wondering if she knows that he’s playing a game of mental Pictionary trying to figure out the color of her panties. We’ve never seen that tactic employed with an umpire, and we applaud Papelbon for it.

Somewhere, Yoda nods in approval. Right, you are, Cinco.

UPDATE: As one person pointed out in the comments, the late Jim Valvano used a similar tactic to get T'd up when he was a coach. Quote #5.

Video of Papelbon's comments after the jump.