White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson spent an entire game complaining about umpire Joe West
Aug 23, 2010, 10:15 AM EDT
White Sox announcer Hawk Harrelson spent the bulk of yesterday afternoon’s game complaining about home plate umpire Joe West, whom he feels holds a longtime grudge against the team that led to the Royals getting favorable calls.
Harrelson talked about the umpiring for literally innings at a time and his broadcast partner Frank Thomas, who was subbing for a vacationing Steve Stone, frequently chimed in to agree.
After every close pitch that was called a ball for a White Sox pitcher or a strike for a Royals pitcher, Harrelson launched into another monologue about the umpires conspiring against the White Sox. He frequently used words like “disgusting” and “disgraceful” to describe the situation, and called it a “travesty” that West was even allowed to work White Sox games after his incident with Mark Buehrle earlier this season.
At one point Thomas noted that “back when I was playing” the catcher and pitcher would intentionally get “crossed up” on a pitch and let it hit the umpire, which seemed to be mostly a joke because a) Thomas laughed, b) “back when I was playing” was all of two years ago, and c) that rarely, if ever, actually happens. But then Harrelson liked the sound of Thomas’ “idea” and suggested the White Sox actually do it to West.
Finally, in the 10th inning Jason Kendall broke a 2-2 tie with a walk-off single, winning the game and the series for the Royals and dropping the White Sox to 2-4 on their road trip, at which point the following exchange took place:
Harrelson: This is absolutely … [five-second pause] … this is absolutely not right.
Thomas: This really sucks.
As a Twins fan I quite enjoyed the whole broadcast, but I can’t imagine many other people liking three straight hours of complaining about umpires and I can’t imagine MLB liking announcers publicly calling for teams to intentionally injure umpires.
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- BC - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:20 AM
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Harrelson is a chipwich. But anyone who criticizes Joe West is alright in my book. WIN for Hawk!
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- Chris Fiorentino - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:21 AM
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Two of the worst people on the planet…Hawk and Joe West.
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- Ari Collins - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:27 AM
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Wow. Just, I mean, WOW. I mean, umpiring’s been bad, and I’m all for instant replay, but that’s pretty intense. Three hours of complaining about the ump? Plus megalomaniacally believing that an umpire has it out for your team? I couldn’t listen to that level of negativity for three hours.
I’m not a Hawk fan, but I do wanna see what happens now. Guy has thrown the eff DOWN, here.
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- RichardInBigD - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:27 AM
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Personally, I can’t believe Joe West is allowed to put on the blue and taint MLB games with his biases and obvious hatreds.
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- Chitown - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:43 AM
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Hawk was just overly excited that day because his nemesis Jay Marriotti had been arrested the night before. This is nothing new for people that listen to Sox Broadcasts. He is one of the most annoying play-by-play men in the game.
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- Kelly - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:46 AM
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After they suggested hitting the umpire, did he joyfully yell, “Throw it at the ump…..YES!”? Because that would be par for the course.
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- Jonny5 - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:47 AM
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Jowl West deserves whatever he gets. On the other hand, Fans deserve to hear the game called properly as well. To be honest, I think its Quatto, who now resides in Jowl Wests neck pouch thats to blame here.
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- birdmancometh - Aug 23, 2010 at 10:49 AM
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Joe West onece saved my child and dog from a burning building…Ok, not really, but screw Hawk. The only travisty is that so many people have to listen to you on a nearly daily basis.
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- Xpensive Wino - Aug 23, 2010 at 11:05 AM
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The worst announcer of anything……………ever!!!!
The fact that the White Sox, their flagship station and MLB allow him to announce MLB games is inexcusable. He’s a total embarrassment.
Is Joe West the reason those jag-offs are choking now that push has come to shove?
Dad-gummit!
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- YANKEES1996 - Aug 23, 2010 at 11:06 AM
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Imagine that someone who spends significant time complaining about Joe West, I find it hard to believe that he is the only person in that category. Joe West is a disgrace as a MLB umpire and not much better as a person.
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- geoknows - Aug 23, 2010 at 11:22 AM
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I didn’t see Hawk – I try to avoid him like the plague – but I imagine he also fueled the complaint among Sox fans that West squeezing Danks but not Greinke. Pitch F/X doesn’t support that though. He absolutely was not calling the low strike, but he did that throughout the game for everybody. That said, Sox pitchers threw a lot more low balls than the Royals did – maybe they recognized that they weren’t going to get that call so kept it more up in the zone? Anyway, West looked like he was pretty consistently bad for both teams.
Oh, and Harrelson is an absolute abomination. The Sox should be embarrassed to continue to trot this tool out there year after year.
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- Dasher521 - Aug 23, 2010 at 12:03 PM
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Joe West (and others) voluntarily resigned his position as an umpire as a contract ploy. The courts forced MLB to take him back. I don’t know why. “Cowboy Joe” is under the impression that the fans pay and come to see him. The job of the umpire is to get the call right and be invisible. West does neither, he wants to be the show and he holds a grudge against teams and players. There are only two people that I ever boo at any sporting event – J.D. Drew and Joe West.
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- ultimatecardinalwarrior - Aug 23, 2010 at 12:10 PM
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Mercy!
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- jdo - Aug 23, 2010 at 12:29 PM
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I hate the Sox, but Joe West is horrible.
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- John_Michael - Aug 23, 2010 at 12:39 PM
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Do we have Pitch F/X data that shows that Cowboy Joe West was favoring the Royals? I’m not saying that Hawk acted professionally, but it does mean something if he was right.
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- geoknows - Aug 23, 2010 at 12:57 PM
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John Micheal, see my comment above about the Pitch F/X data from the game. There’s no evidence to support favoritism. The data is available at Brooks Baseball.
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- dinks14 - Aug 23, 2010 at 12:59 PM
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While Joe West’s umpiring leaves something to be desired, he is not the only umpire that Hawk complains about regularly. He often complains about borderline calls. I have never heard an announcer cry so much about the strike zone. He also makes several inappropriate comments. The other day Delmon Young went out of his way to try to elbow Pierzynski. It was a dirty play. Hawk then was not only saying Young should get plunked the next time up, which he probably should have, but he quoted, “I wonder how he will look with a Rawlings stuck in the earhole of his helmet.” The fact that an announcer suggested hitting a player in the head with a pitch should earn him a suspension. If he were a player or manager he would have been fined several times for his comments. Mlb needs to review his broadcasts. He needs to hang up his microphone.
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- Kiwicricket - Aug 23, 2010 at 1:03 PM
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I really can’t decide who offends listeners more….’Cowboy Joe’ and his musical incest err umm I mean band/album, or the Hawk’s ranting. None of them effect/affect me directly, so I am all for this sort of entertainment.
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- King Ding-A-Ling - Aug 23, 2010 at 1:28 PM
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Joe West is a fuckhead.
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- Mrsteve - Aug 23, 2010 at 2:46 PM
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Hawk is such a homer but at least he love’s his team. He also has a deep respect for other team. Such as the Twins. A begrudging respect but he doesn’t hide his love for the Sox or how he feels. I loved his HR call against the Twins when Thome popped the game winner. Silence.
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- TMW - Aug 23, 2010 at 2:59 PM
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I’m a Twins fan and I’ve got nothing against Hawk’s homerism, but his over-emphasis on calls that don’t go the Sox’ way and under-emphasis on lucky breaks is infuriating because it spreads an irritating crybaby culture amongst all Sox fans. I know he’s a die-hard Republican and right wingers on talk radio use this tactic all the time. This has to be where he gets it.
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- Kevin1963 - Aug 23, 2010 at 3:20 PM
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I’m a Sox fan and I actually like Hawk, but I just couldn’t stand it yesterday. Hawk was a one note song. It’s been bad enough having to listen to Frank Thomas say “we sure could use a hit here” pretty much every Sox at bat for 3 games, but Hawk disgraced himself yesterday by paying more attention to Joe West than the game itself. He should have made a couple of comments citing his displeasure and let it be, but he couldn’t stop. I understand he wants the Sox to win the division, especially after they came all the way back after their poor start, but the Sox haven’t gotten 5 games behind the Twins because of Joe West. Poor relief pitching and lack of clutch hitting have sent the Sox headed south the past 2-3 weeks.
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- Steeler Fan in Germantown - Aug 23, 2010 at 3:31 PM
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Not a whole lot of gray area in that statement!
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- The Real Shuxion - Aug 23, 2010 at 3:38 PM
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How old are you son????? He said I’m 14.
The amazing lyrical ability of Joe West.
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- kcfan - Aug 23, 2010 at 3:45 PM
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Perhaps a little bitter about losing 2 of 3 to the Royals and falling 5 back of Minnsesota? I watched the game on Fox Sports Kansas City and they showed the strike zone graphic numerous times and both teams had to deal with it, especially the lower pitches (like geoknows said earlier). They even pointed out one time around the 5th or 6th inning that Greinke threw a nice pitch low and in and didnt get the call and Greinke hung his head down looking at West waiting for the K and didnt get it, the strike zone graphic showed it was a strike.
