MASN broadcaster Jim Palmer won’t be on umpire C.B. Bucknor’s Christmas card list any time soon.
Not after the former Baltimore star pitcher tore into the MLB ump during the Orioles’ 4-2 win over the Yankees on Tuesday night at Camden Yards.
Palmer, a Hall of Fame pitcher, is not a fan of the officiating styles of Bucknor and that only intensified during the first inning of the second game of a four-game set between the AL East rivals when Yanks pitcher Nestor Cortes threw a low pitch that was called a strike.
The low strike three call on Gunnar Henderson set Palmer off on a tirade against Bucknor.
“You kind of wonder how bad he’s going to be and he’s shown us already in the first inning,” Palmer said. “All you want is a guy who understands the strike zone. That’s on the ground.”
The MASN broadcaster didn’t stop there.
“He shouldn’t be umpiring and he is, and they know it,” Palmer continued. “It’s kind of like pitching, when I couldn’t get people out, I became a broadcaster.”
Play-by-play man Kevin Brown tried to bring some levity to the situation with a quick joke after Palmer’s comments.
“So, C.B. will be joining us in the booth tomorrow,” Brown quipped.
Bucknor has a 91.6 percent accuracy rating on pitches called, according to Umpire Scorecards, which is tied for the lowest in baseball this season among umps who have worked at least five games.
The Orioles still wound up winning the game, but fell 2-0 to the Yankees on Wednesday night.
It was the Yankees’ first win in the four-game series.
The MLB season is still early but umpires have already come under fire on several occasions, including when Yankees manager Aaron Boone was ejected from a game after an umpire Hunter Wendelstedt mistakenly thought something a fan had said had come from the dugout.