Cardinals rookie Hancel Rincon entered Friday's game against the Rockies in the sixth inning for his MLB debut, cap tilted to the left. Home-plate umpire Doug Eddings had catcher Leo Bernal tell Rincon to straighten it, and Rincon did, without arguing. The next three Rockies batters hit a triple, an inside-the-park home run, and a single. That cut into St. Louis's lead, and manager Oliver Marmol pulled Rincon. Marmol argued with Eddings and got ejected, his fourth of the season. The Cardinals still won 7-6 on a ninth-inning homer from Cardinals catcher Iván Herrera.

1. The Manager (Oliver Marmol, Cardinals Manager)

Eddings had no business making this about himself on a rookie's biggest day.

Eddings picked a fight that wasn't his to pick. Marmol didn't hold back: "I had an issue with Doug. Just Doug. He took it upon himself to tell our rookie pitcher the kid's 'not going to wear his hat on my field that way.' I have an issue with that. That's just a power-hungry move, in my opinion."

He also says Eddings got his facts wrong. Eddings told reporters a Rockies batter had flagged the hat to him first. Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman, the batter Eddings meant, denies it: "I never once mentioned the hat." Marmol called the whole sequence "pretty embarrassing" and said he'd ask the league office for clarification.

2. The Umpire (Doug Eddings, Home-Plate Umpire)

There's no rule on hat tilt, but addressing distractions is part of the job.

Eddings admits there's no rule. He's not backing down anyway. "It's not [a rule]. I guess it's a little unwritten rule," he said. He argues a crooked cap is an on-field distraction, and umpires are supposed to handle it once someone points it out: "If it's a distraction, like anything on the field, like a glove or something, and someone makes you aware of it, then you kind of address that."

He says a player prompted it, not him. By his account, a Rockies batter asked, "Hey, can he wear his hat like that?" and he had the catcher relay the fix to Rincon rather than stopping play himself. Rincon says he didn't push back in the moment: "I've been pitching with my hat like that. It's not an excuse. But I had no idea why he told me to do it."

3. The Reform Camp (Chipper Jones and Robo-Ump Advocates)

Eddings has a track record, and reform advocates want the sport to lean on technology instead of his judgment.

This isn't Eddings' first credibility problem. In the 2005 ALCS, Eddings ruled that Angels catcher Josh Paul hadn't cleanly caught a third strike against Chicago catcher A.J. Pierzynski. Pierzynski ran to first, and the White Sox later scored the winning run off it. Sports Illustrated has since ranked the call among the worst blown calls in MLB history.

Chipper Jones has already called this out. The Braves Hall of Famer said last year, after a separate game, that Eddings is "one of the worst umpires in the league for going on 2 decades ... consistently one of the most confrontational. Toxic combination!"

Nobody's punishing him for this one either. Eddings' call didn't hurt Friday's outcome, so MLB isn't expected to discipline him over it. Critics have used the incident to revive calls for expanded automated strike-zone technology. They point to Eddings' 2005 history and this year's missed-call data as proof umpire discretion needs a smaller role.

Where This Lands

Marmol says Eddings turned a non-issue into a scene on a rookie's debut, and got his own justification for it wrong. Eddings says a crooked hat counted as a distraction, and once someone pointed it out, he was entitled to fix it. Neither the hat tilt nor Eddings' handling of it broke a written rule, and MLB isn't expected to discipline him over it. The reform camp says that's the problem: nobody has to answer for this call, and Eddings' track record already includes one of the sport's most infamous blown calls.

Sources