Umpiring can be a thankless job, but one longtime ump says his role in one of baseball's most infamous plays offered a bit of redemption.
Game 6 of the 2004 ALCS is best known for the infamous glove-slap play by Alex Rodriguez, in which the Yankees slugger's run-scoring infield single was taken off the board after umpires huddled and overturned the play for interference.
Veteran umpire Joe West was part of the umpiring crew at Yankee Stadium that day, which he said was "one of the most intense" games of his career, during a Tuesday appearance on ESPN's Baseball Tonight podcast with Buster Olney.
"The first-base umpire Randy Marsh .. he didn't see that Alex slapped at the glove. He just saw the ball on the ground. So he signaled safe. And when he signaled safe, now -- we can't change it. He has to ask us. ... We got where Randy could see something was wrong. And he came to us and he said, 'What happened?' And I said, 'Well, he slapped his glove with his barehand. He can't do that, it's interference.' And the right-field umpire was Jeff Kellogg, he said 'That's exactly what happened.' And of course we got the whole crew together, and we changed it."
That's when Yankee Stadium erupted in disapproval, West said.
"When we changed it, they threw everything in the world at us. ... A guy even threw his BMW keys at John Hirschbeck at third base. I told him, 'We should go to the parking lot and see if we can find it using his car keys,'" West joked.
"We actually had to go get the riot squad to calm everything down on the field. .. It was intense. As soon as the police came out, they arrested like 15 or 16 people, and then it was over."
But for all the abuse the umps took in Game 6, West says a number of Yankee fans came around after sleeping on it -- and gave him one of the most memorable and rewarding experiences of his career.
"The next day, when we walked out with the lineup cards, we actually got a small ovation from the fans," West said. "Because they knew we called it right, and it went against their home team."
"So that's probably the most interesting or unusual thing that I ever witnessed, was getting an ovation after we called something against the home team. It was an unbelievable thing. And I can't tell you how good it felt when the media took our side, the media said, 'they were absolutely right.' Usually when an umpire's noticed, he's noticed because he's made a mistake. And that's sad -- all the good calls a guy makes, and then he misses one and he's a dog for the rest of the day. But that's just a part of the job."
West debuted in 1976 and has called over 5,300 career games. A colorful character and notably outspoken for an MLB umpire, West has had several disciplinary brushes with the league for questionable umpiring conduct and been accused of grandstanding on more than one occasion in his long career.
