Umpires To Answer Call Of Duty

Despite their final show of protest, major league umpires intend to work today in the baseball playoffs.

Union attorney Richie Phillips said Thursday that the umpires will go on strike today to protest that Roberto Alomar was not immediately suspended. But American League umpire Rich Garcia said they expect to keep working for the rest of the playoffs and World Series.

U.S. District Judge Edmund Ludwig is meeting with Phillips and baseball executives this morning in Philadelphia. Phillips told the executive board Thursday that he expects Ludwig to issue an injunction that will require the umpires to stay on the job.

Garcia said the umpires are making baseball get the injunction because “we want to alert the world that we will fight for what is right.”

Major league baseball asked Ludwig to issue the injunction Tuesday, when the umpires planned to boycott the start of the playoffs. Then the umpires agreed to work through Thursday, the day that American League president Gene Budig was scheduled to hear Alomar’s appeal of his suspension for spitting in the face of umpire John Hirschbeck last Friday. Ludwig postponed the injunction until at least today.

During the three-day extension, the umpires tried to persuade Budig and acting commissioner Bud Selig to make Alomar’s five-game suspension take effect during the current Baltimore-Cleveland playoff series.

The umpires believe that regardless of precedents, someone who spits at an umpire cannot be allowed to continue playing, even in the playoffs.