Joyce injected himself into the game, they said, an opinion Phillies fans know only too well. It was Joyce who refused to use replay on what might have been a game-winning home run by Greg Dobbs earlier this season, a decision that flipped a win into a loss and fueled what seems to be an increasing perception that umpire arrogance and antagonism has been on the rise this season.
"I hear what you're saying," said Jimmie Lee Solomon, executive vice president in charge of baseball operations for Major League Baseball.
Solomon reviews on-field calls and confrontations, and decides if discipline is needed for both player and umpire. He said, "You hear this every year," and "I don't think it's any more than before," but he also conceded he has heard the talk that it is.
"There may be times where it happens two or three times over the course of the week and it gets a lot of attention and there seems to be an overreaction.
"Our mantra to them is to stay above the fray."
Above the fray? Ed Rapuano had his reasons for his 250-foot toss of the Flyin' Hawaiian on Sunday at Citizens Bank Park, but staying above the fray couldn't have been one of them. Rapuano could easily have ignored or pretended not to see Shane Victorino's histrionics, let him calm down, preserved the integrity of what was, at the time, a 3-1 game. Clearly he didn't see Jimmy Rollins doing much of the same thing at the same time.
Rapuano's tape-measure ejection helped turn a close game into a circus. He was unrepentant afterward, after the inning and the game devolved into a 12-3 mess of a Phillies loss.
"He's right in the line of sight and he's out in front of everybody, waving his arms in disgust of a pitch that I called," he said.
