Joe Maddon Takes on Cowboy Joe West

In April, Ian wrote about Cowboy Joe West and his attempts to singlehandedly speed up baseball games. Well, a funny thing happened last night: Tampa Bay Rays manager Joe Maddon was ejected by home plate ump Angel Hernandez after Hernandez denied the time-out called by Carlos Pena on a 2-2 count. The pitch resulted in strike three. Maddon had some words with Hernandez before approaching West. (West is the crew chief of this umpiring group, and his last comments about speeding up the game were prompted by his refusal to grant time-out to batters during a Yankees/Red Sox game he umped). First of all, Pena is a little at fault here for stepping out of the batter's box after assuming his time-out request would be granted. On the other hand, I agree with everything Joe Maddon says in his post-game comments.