This past weekend, professional baseball was plagued by controversial calls.
In one case, an umpire verbally abused a player, which is frowned upon.안전놀이터
The Korean Baseball Organization, or KBO, immediately disciplined the umpires and vowed to prevent such incidents from happening again.
Reporter Park Soo-joo.
[Reporter]
On the 20th of this month, Hanwha catcher Choi Jae-hoon was hit by a bat that LG’s Jung Ju-hyun missed.
It happened in the bottom of the ninth inning while trying to hit a pitch out of the strike zone.
However, Jeong was called out for “interference with the catcher’s bat” instead of “interference with the batter’s defense”.
Hanwha manager Choi Won-ho stormed out of the dugout to protest, but the call was agreed upon by the four umpires and was not overturned.
“I can’t help but feel unfair because I threw the bat, so it’s a little hard to understand batting interference right now.”
Under KBO rules, batting or fielding interference is not subject to video review, and umpires do not have the authority to request video review, so the four umpires went head-to-head, but the call was wrong.
The KBO Umpire Committee quickly recognized the error and issued a warning to the umpires on the 22nd.
However, it was reportedly not a case of misapplication of the rules, so they did not face severe punishment such as being demoted to the second team.
In particular, referee Kwon Young-cheol, who spoke back to LG’s Park Hae-min at the end of the game, reportedly received a separate personnel report and penalties.
“Hey, I’m struggling too”
“Who said I’m not struggling?”
Park Hae-min apologized to fans and teammates, saying he should have restrained himself.
The KBO Referees Committee vowed to prevent a recurrence.
“The most important thing for referees is trust, and the referees know that, and they’re doing their best on the field, but they can’t get close to the fans’ level, so we’ll always keep working on that…”