Country Joe is hittin’ the ole cow poke trail or some such thing. That is to say, MLB umpire Joe West, scourge of your favorite team, has officially retired.
Five umpires have been promoted to the full-time Major League staff: Ryan Additon, Sean Barber, John Libka, Ben May and Roberto Ortiz, who becomes the first Puerto Rican-born umpire ever to join the Major League staff. Congrats to the new umpires, retirees and new Crew Chiefs. pic.twitter.com/Kd9G76Ctu3
— MLB Communications (@MLB_PR) February 4, 2022
West retires as the all-time record-holder for umpiring 5,460 MLB games, a near one thousand of which proceeded without incident.
While West’s umpiring was, at times, rather dodgy, he mostly became known for the things he did outside the normal balls, strikes, outs, and such. There was the CONSTANT fight-picking with players and managers, hat confiscations, hat ejections, COVID conspiracy theories, arm bands for umpires, a defamation suit about his generous strike zone (though he did win that one!), tossing a GM from the stands, AND the Joe Maddon spin move:
Oh, also, there is this beauty:
My favorite Joe West Highlight. pic.twitter.com/IafyA1Mg9b
— Rob Friedman (@PitchingNinja) February 4, 2022
Upon West’s official departure, I have to admit that I will probably miss some of the ridiculousness (when it doesn’t touch upon the Cubs). Joe West was wrong to make the story about himself as often as he did, but darn if it wasn’t sometimes fun to get mad about that story.
I guess now we just have to hope that Angel Hernandez never retires?