Baseball Toaster was unplugged on February 4, 2009.
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Miguel Tejada of Baltimore reached first on catcher's interference tonight against Boston (Jason Varitek drawing the error) in the first inning tonight. This is Tejada's first time to reach on catcher's interference.
I have noticed four catcher's interference calls. Twice the home plate umpire was Angel Hernandez. Last night, Darin Erstad of the White Sox reached on CI, but Larry Young was the home plate umpire. But.... Angel Hernandez was the first base ump.
The Dodgers had two batters reach first on catcher's interference, and they happened in consecutive games. Rafael Furcal had it happen to him on April 15 with Rob Bowen as the catcher and ... Angel Hernandez ... as the umpire. Then Andre Ethier did it the next day with Miguel Montero of Arizona as the catcher and the umpire was ... Brian Gorman.
So maybe there isn't a pattern. But maybe if I study the boxscores long enough, I will detect a pattern. I can do it. I will ask my friend, who looks a lot like Paul Bettany, for help.
What do you mean you can't see him?
Hernandez seems to be one of those umps who makes a lot of technicality calls as a way of saying "Hey, look at me! I'm an umpire! I have control over the game!"
In the realm of drawing attention to himself, though, Hernandez has a long way to go before he catches up to Joe West. Now there's a guy who needs to be tarred and feathered. Not to mention having his own country music songs played back at him at excruciating decibel levels while the tar dries.
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