Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Major League Umpiring Debut: Seth Buckminster (67)

Umpire Seth Buckminster made his MLB debut during the Angels-Mariners game April 8 in Seattle. Buckminster joined crew chief Mike Winters' crew, serving as Tuesday's third base umpire alongside 2B Umpire Andy Fletcher, 1B Umpire Winters and home plate umpire Mike Muchlinski.

Photo: George Tuley
Buckminster is on the International League umpire roster for the 2014 season, which is his third year in Triple-A, having started his Minor League umpiring career in 2006, working the Arizona, Appalachian, South Atlantic, Florida Instructional, California, Arizona Instructional and Texas Leagues before his promotion to AAA. He worked the 2012 Arizona Fall League and was selected to that year's Arizona Fall League Championship Game.

Buckminster resides in Fort Worth, Texas and wears the sleeve uniform number 67. The 6-foot-4, 210-pound Buckminster, who makes his MLB debut at the age of 32, ejected Mariners Manager Eric Wedge on March 27 for arguing a ball three call (QOC = Irrecusable).

6 comments :

Lindsay said...

For everyone who scoffs at "tie goes to the runner"... this play was very much a "tie goes to the runner".


And you're now defending it. :)


So, you know, tie went to the runner. :)

Lindsay said...

Why was Brian O'Nora brought in as acting crew chief. I know Hirshcbeck is on leave with this crew, but Davidson has 25+ years, is normally Hirschbecks's senior umpire on the crew and would be acting crew chief if Hirschbeck was on vacation. O'Nora is a great umpire but has had his share of blunders along the way including the mound visit debacle as part of Culbreth's crew last year.

Lindsay said...

The Nationals decision came back as not clear or convincing—the call stands. From a rules perspective, the BOS-NYY call was overturned because clear and convincing visual evidence demonstrated that the ball was not caught prior to the runner touching the base. The WAS-ATL call was upheld because such clear and convincing evidence did not exist to demonstrate the timing of the catch relative to the timing of the runner's foot on the base.

Lindsay said...

Thanks. I understand that that is the explanation of why the review umpires came to different conclusions. I guess this boils down to the replay system just finding something new to quibble about, so now we're debating the application of evidentiary standards instead of an on-field bang-bang call that really are beyond the ability of an umpire to call with confidence in real time. All that said, I think the evidence for reversal was equally compelling in both cases. Short if there being a single, full time reviewer, however, I don't know how you achieve such consistency.

Lindsay said...

Bob Davidson just tossed Matt Carpenter

Lindsay said...

And Ron Washington got tossed arguing a replay reversal and this new transfer rule

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