The next time I think I’m having a bad day I am going to think about Major League Umpire John Hirschbeck.  Then I am going to get up from my desk and go behind the building where I work to the alley in back.  I will stand about three feet from the wall in the alley and hit a baseball into it as hard as I can until I get hit with four ricochets. In essence, that is what happened to Hirschbeck on Thursday during a game in Cleveland between the Indians and Royals. Not once, not twice, four times!

I don’t know if there is a stat or category for umpires being hit but there should be. Hirschbeck was hit with a foul tip, a foul ball, and a passed ball; if he would have been hit with a bat he would have had an “Umpire’s Cycle”!  So close, being hit by the bat is always the hardest one to achieve.

Hirschbeck has been in his share of news outside the foul lines during his 25 year career as a Major League Umpire.  He was in the center of the 1996 Alomar spitting incident as well as the 2004 Gabe White – Barry Bonds controversy.

On Thursday though, for the first time in a long time, a couple of people may have felt sympathetic for him.  I don’t think any ballplayer would wish this bad of a day on him; 4 times? Maybe twice, but four is just ridiculous.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see him on the DL in the Umpire Fantasy Leagues tomorrow.

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