Umpire Joe West Wins Defamation - Damages Future Card Show Earnings

[packs]

True. Wonder if Billy Wagner will follow Joe's lead. This incident might be keeping him out of the HOF too.

[Steve D]

So.....If, after a few years, West isn't elected to the HOF, does he sue the election committee for keeping him out of his "rightful" place in it?

I say "rightful" place from his perspective, as he seems to think he truly belongs there.

As for me, he should never get within 100 miles of Cooperstown!

Steve

[Exhibitman]

Did anyone read the details? LoDuca told a very specific story about catching with Wagner striking out the side on pitches outside the zone and then being told by Wagner that Wagner bought West's widening the plate by letting him drive his car. The facts that came out in court were:

"The 66-year-old veteran ump worked home plate only once when Wagner and Lo Duca were teammates in 2006-07 and Wagner did not pitch in the Phillies-Mets game".

in other words, it could not have happened.

That is a textbook case of defamation. West may have been pure crap behind the plate (I have no idea) but that sort of story...WTF was Paulie thinking?

[Snapolit1]

Paulie has spent too many days out in the sun at Santa Anita and Del Mar.

[Misunderestimated]

Adam's right -- Its clearly defamation ...... The damages were interesting to me. He is a presumptive HOF Umpire based on breaking Klem's record. The idea that he's a "bad Ump" is probably not part of that -- the fact that he umpired so many games seemingly makes him HOF worthy. That's debatable in theory but I'm not so sure that the "quality" of his umpiring (or lack thereof) will outweigh its quantity.
Personally, I don't feel remotely fit to judge the quality of his umpiring. He was/is clearly respected by his peers for his leadership and he's umped post-seasons and that's worth something. Being a bit of showboat - "Cowboy Joy" - probably helps more than it hurts. The one thing that would diminish any umpire's reputation more than anything else is what Lo Duca accused him of -- corruption. $500,000 is a lot of money but not to Lo Duca. I'm guesstimating that he cleared around $40,000,000 is salary in his career (baseball-reference is incomplete in his salary records)......