‘Social Media Firestorm’ Motivated MLB Umpire Angel Hernandez to Abruptly Retire

It appears that America’s most hated pro baseball umpire, Angel Hernandez, retired after a firestorm of attacks leveled by fans on social media.

Hernandez retired late last month after over 30 years as an MLB umpire. But he didn’t just announce his retirement. He retired on the spot, leaving immediately upon his announcement.

On May 28, the hated ump gave the well-known “I want to spend more time with my family” excuse for quitting. But some feel there are other reasons behind his sudden leap into retirement.

ESPN’s Jeff Passan, for one, said that his abrupt run for the exits is because of the daily abuse he takes on social media, the New York Post reported.

“A lot of that stuff, frankly, led to him going away. He got tired of it. He got tired of the social media firestorm that exists,” Passan told Rich Eisen on Tuesday.

“Frankly, I will acknowledge this is understandable because there are parts of his job where he was genuinely bad,” Passa moaned. “And it was magnified by the ubiquity of baseball on social media now. And how every time he would do something wrong, it would get put out there, and then it would almost just compound upon itself, the last time, and it would bring up the Angel Hernandez highlight reel. You just had this echo chamber of Angel Hernández awfulness that, I think, in the end, wound up being part of his undoing.”

Passan certainly has a point about Hernandez’s “highlight reel,” which should probably more aptly be called a “lowlight reel,” for showing the many, many bad calls he has made over the years.

Such as this one:

Hernandez, who started his career in 1993, has been so incompetent that, even after over 30 years as an ump, he was never picked to lead his own team, which rarely happens in MLB officiating.

Indeed, the much-maligned ump even tried to sue the league for not giving him his own crew and alleged that he was discriminated against because he is Hispanic. He ignominiously lost that suit in 2021. A federal appeals court turned down his appeal of the decision last year.

“Hernández has failed to establish a statistically significant disparity between the promotion rates of white and minority umpires,” the appeals court held. “MLB has provided persuasive expert evidence demonstrating that, during the years at issue, the difference in crew chief promotion rates between white and minority umpires was not statistically significant. Hernández offers no explanation as to why MLB’s statistical evidence is unreliable.”

Hernández was so bad that a study prepared by Boston University found that he had 2.2 missed calls per inning over his career.

So, perhaps we can make baseball safe for America. If you see something, say something, fans. It just might make a difference.

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