This is Joe West's world, we just live in it

This week Jelisa Castrodale visits Westworld, and just like in the movie, determines that this runaway robot must be stopped before he kills everyone.
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By Jelisa Castrodale
I love worthless bits of trivia and consider my brain to be a synapse-firing Snapple cap, capable of spilling anything from the average weight of the male blue marlin to a disturbing number of Psychedelic Furs lyrics. Despite my lifelong commitment to unimportant crap, there are a handful of things I’m OK with not knowing, like the main ingredients in Hot Pockets, the plot of Sex and the City 2 or the names of any major league umpires.
So far I’ve managed to avoid sodium citrate or Samantha’s withered nether-regions, but ignoring that third thing has been a problem since longtime backstop Joe West started opening his mouth wider than his strike zone. In an interview with the Bergen (N.J.) Record, West criticized the Red Sox and Yankees for their slow play during a series he officiated. According to West, both teams are “pathetic” and “embarrassing”, strong words coming from a swollen-looking man who can only tuck three of his chins into his chest protector.

West has been an umpire since the Ford administration, working in the majors long enough for baseballs to be stamped with the signatures of five different commissioners. He’s currently the president of the World Umpires Association and has sewn four World Series patches onto his polyester uniforms. After thirty-four years and over 4,000 games, you’d think West would’ve already noticed that baseball moves more slowly than Gabourey Sidibe in a sack race.
But was he right? Technically, yes. The Sox and the Yankees are baseball’s most tedious teams, with games that routinely last longer than last season’s average of 2:51. But they’re also the teams with the two biggest payrolls, so one would assume that each bloated inning is the result of batters that are good at staying in the box and working the pitch count and — conversely — for having bullpens so deep that they can swap pitchers more than Russell Crowe swaps accents in Robin Hood.
West went wrong when he forgot that umpires (and their vertically-striped counterparts in the other pro leagues) should be seen and not heard, much like the Jonas Brothers or that creepy girl from The Ring. That goes twice for umpires who record and promote their own country music albums — like, say, Joe West — or the ones who have their own publicists. Again, like, Joe West.
That’s right. As first reported by ESPN’s Gordon Edes, Joe West — a man who is supposed to be less obvious than the Lumber Liquidators ads behind home plate — has hired a public relations firm. Marty Martel of Tennessee’s Midnight Special Productions describes his client as “one of the most unique individuals in the professional sports world”, praising his abilities as a “country singer, songwriter and entertainer.”
The two people who don’t find West that entertaining — other than the two who bought his most recent CD — are White Sox manager Ozzie Guillen and pitcher Mark Buerhle, who were both ejected by West on Wednesday night. They were both tossed for arguing a pair of balks, Guillen getting the boot after the first one, Buerhle after the second. The fact that West got into it with Guillen isn’t a headline grabber; Guillen has ranted at everything from umpires to reporters to the animatronic animals at Chuck E. Cheese. (“THAT F***ING OTTER ISN’T REALLY F***CKING PLAYING THE F***ING BANJO!”) The interesting part is that even though Guillen’s post-game reaction was characteristically unrestrained (“[West] is a f***ing a**hole, that’s what he is. Sometimes he thinks f***ing people pay to watch him f***ing umpire.”), this time we actually understand his frustration, especially when the umpire in question is a self-described entertainer.
Incredibly, West made news *again* this week when it was announced that he would be working this weekend’s four-game Red Sox-Royals series at Fenway. Normally umpiring assignments aren’t disclosed until immediately before each game begins, so how did we know where in the world Joe “Carmen San Diego” West would be on Thursday? Oh, right. His publicist.
West has explored extracurricular activities for years, whether “acting” as the ‘Third Base Umpire’ in the first Naked Gun flick or golfing on the misleadingly named Celebrity Players Tour or growing a FUPA big enough to wear clothes from Baby Gap. He has every right to do these things — though I cock one overplucked eyebrow every time he indirectly refers to himself as a celebrity — because those don’t affect the outcome of a game or call his on-field judgment into question.
Baseball isn’t American Idol. The umps don’t hanging out in the basepaths, sipping from bottles of Vitamin Water and casually offering advice. According to Section 9.0 of the Official Rules of Major League Baseball, their job is being “responsible for the conduct of the game [...] and for maintaining discipline and order on the playing field.” We, as fans, should still be able to rant about umpires’ eyesight, about their sanity or about their abilities to somehow develop beer guts on the back of their necks, but we shouldn’t ever seriously wonder whether they’re biased against or partial to certain teams. West’s behavior on and off the diamond is making that increasingly difficult.
According to Bruce Levine of ESPNChicago.com, West’s actions — at least in the Chicago series — are going to be investigated by MLB’s director of discipline Bob Watson, who says a decision about a possible fine or suspension could be announced on Friday afternoon.
After his initial comments about the Sox and Yanks, West was asked if his criticism crossed the foul lines of his profession. “The people who say I am not impartial, I am impartial,” he responded. “I just tell the truth. Who do you want to deliver the message?”
I don’t know, Joe. How about your publicist?
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Jelisa Castrodale is a writer and comedian who has learned a lot about life by making a mess of her own. She chronicles her failures at The Typing Makes Me Sound Busy, covers music for London’s BitchBuzz and twitters while she waits at stoplights. Castrodale was featured in the book Twitter Wit and was named one of Mashable’s 10 Funniest Twitterers.
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