Angry ump: Garcia says he kept quiet to protect son-in-law

NEW YORK (AP) — Richie Garcia was among baseball’s best-rated and most popular umpires, and like many umps was known for the ones he missed: the Jeffrey Maier call in the playoffs, the pitch to Tino Martinez in the World Series.

He lost his job in the failed labor strategy of mass resignations in 1999 and was welcomed back to Major League Baseball two years later as a supervisor. Then, out of nowhere it seemed, he was fired on the eve of the 2010 season.

Garcia stayed quiet for a decade, not wanting to cause any problems for son-in-law Vic Carapazza, among the top umps of the current group.

Now, at 77, Garcia is fed up. He’s feeling impugned by a former colleague in a lawsuit Garcia has nothing to do with.

“I worked too hard to keep a good reputation in baseball for these people to just come out and say whatever the hell they want, to just say things just out of the clear blue sky,” Garcia said during a series of interviews in the past month with The Associated Press.

“I’ve kept my mouth shut all these years because of my son-in-law. I kept my mouth shut because I’m protecting him and my daughter. And I’m just sick of it,” he said.

A big league umpire from 1975-99 and a supervisor for nine years, Garcia was abruptly dismissed. The commissioner’s office announced his departure two days before opening day. No reason was given.

Garcia never tried to explain.

Then last month, a May 2019 deposition by umpire supervisor Randy Marsh was publicly filed by lawyers for umpire Ángel Hernández, who sued MLB for race discrimination. Marsh alleged Garcia was fired because he attended minor league games involving Carapazza, who worked his first big league game seven days after Garcia’s departure was announced.

“His son-in-law was umpiring in the minor...

source https://www.chron.com/sports/article/Angry-ump-Garcia-says-he-kept-quiet-to-protect-15279673.php