Worst/Most Crooked Refs

Cowboy Joe West

Dave Hebner's a close second...

 

Denkinger made a terrible call that led to the landslide that ultimately cost the Cardinals the World Series. Any time a team is that close to a championship and something completely out of nowhere changes everything that a team never recovers from, I think it's OK to be bitter -- even if it is 20+ years later. Just ask Buckner and Bartman.

That said, I think Hernandez is the worst umpire in the league. I'm still pissed at him for tossing Jim Edmonds from a game in the 2005 NLCS after Hernandez made a terrible stike call.

 

I haven't watched wrestling in 20+ years, but the Danny Davis reference made me laugh...

 

Bucknor is not only bad, but he may be the most arrogant son of a bitch in the world.

TV Ted Valentine falls under the same category.

 

Teddy Valentine, and it's not even close in my book.

Curtis Shaw is another one I can't stand in the college game. Total dick.

I don't care how much Stern wants to defend his product and his "refs", the rest of the lot are in the NBA.

-Hue Hollins, for screwing the Bulls and introducing MJ to Karla Knafel
-Kenny Mauer: yeah, Heinsohn is right, this Kenny Mauer should go back home to his wife, 'cause nobody here loves him!
-Steve Jaffe: the gold standard of "Look at me, I'm bigger than the game."

Tim Donaghy might be the one going to jail, but those three I mentioned should receive life sentences. David Stern needs the death penalty.

 

Rogers Redding makes Penn Wagers look like Solomon. And Karl Hess has retired the asshole trophy.

 

Denkinger made one bad call. There's a difference between making a bad call and being biased.

In baseball, it's Joe Brinkman (retired).

He was so biased against the Royals that one season, I added it up. Three games behind the plate. Royals batters called out on strikes: 17. Opponents: 0.

 

Much of this thread is pretty pathetic. Bitching about one call and calling the offending ump/official "the worst" is fanboyishness at ITS worst.

An interesting, though not by any means definitive, measurement of college refs is done on the basketballstate.com web site. They track each ref in the nation and track his ratio of home-away calls. Not an accurate way to assess a ref, but neat to look at.

It also tracks how many games each individual referee does, which is interesting in itself. There was a year where, I swear to God, Sid Rodeheffer might as well have been my roommate he did so many of my games.

 

Ken Kaiser.....the only thing larger than his ego was his ass

 

Fanboyishness? Puh-leeze. I didn't measure them based on how many calls they made against my favorite team. It's how many times they call attention to themselves in any game they officiate. Period. Would I say that NCAA ref Rick Hartzell is a bad ref because he screwed Iowa over and that he was the former AD at UNI up the highway in Cedar Falls? Hell no. That's absurd.

BTW, Hartzell can devote most of his time to officiate games now that he left UNI in January.

 

I'm talking about posts with people pointing out Denkinger as the "worst" because he made one bad call in the World Series. That's Cardinals nation coming out of the woodwork because they have an eternal stiffy about '85. Gee, Denkinger umpired for at least 20 years after that bad call, he must have really sucked! Or Bulls nation railing against Hue Hollins. Both are examples of fanboyishness in the context of this thread.

As far as refs, I think bad refs are the ones the choose to control the game inflexibily rather than those who "want to be seen". After all, just because a ref makes a call that puts him in the spotlight late in the game doesn't mean the call itself is wrong. Not trying to let Valentine off the hook, but I think you know what I mean.

To me, a bad ref overwhelms the game with lack of balance on foul calls, quick triggers on technical fouls, etc., and of course, personal vendettas against familiar coaches.

In that vein, Mike "Bench Warning" Sanzere jumps immediately to mind.

 

I agree completely.