The Thing About Hawk Harrelson

The White Sox ended their nine-game losing streak on the road last night by beating the Dodgers 6-1 (oh and the Cubs ended their 14-game home win streak as well), but I don't really want to talk about anything that actually happened in the game.

No, I want to talk about Hawk Harrelson. More specifically, the one thing he does constantly that pisses me off like nothing else. Now, there are a lot of things that Hawk does or says during a broadcast t0 annoy the Sox fan, but to be completely honest about it, I don't not like Hawk.

Do I think he's a good play-by-play guy? No, not really, but I don't mind listening to him do a game that much. In my mind I tend to view him as a bad B-movie. Sure, the script includes more than it's share of horrible dialogue, at times the plot goes way off course, or just goes no where for a while, but in the end the thing is so awful that it's kind of charming. You'd actually watch it again just to laugh at it.

The truth is, when I'm watching a baseball game, there are so many thoughts running through my mind as I'm processing what I'm seeing, that I hardly hear Hawk, D.J, or anybody else who happens to be speaking within range of a microphone.

Now that doesn't mean I can completely tune it out. No, I hear all the dadgummits, the can of corns, and of course the he gones. Still, as lame as these things might be, they do not bother me.

The one thing Hawk does constantly, though, that I just can't take is his incessant complaining about balls and strikes. Shut up about it, already. Nary a game (hell, an inning) goes by without Hawk critiquing a call by the home-plate umpire. It's maddening as all hell.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mind when announcers second guess the umpire once in a while. Particularly when it's in a key situation of a game, but Hawk does it all the time, anytime.

First inning of a 0-0 game with nobody on and one out? That ball was low! What a horrible call! That could cost us the game, no, that could cost us our souls!

He does this ALL. THE. TIME. Which is weird considering that Hawk was only a .239 hitter in his career. Now, I know that the era Hawk played in was a lot different than the one we play in now, so I'm going to do the nice thing and add a full .050 points to that for him. I mean, it's not going to hurt where I'm going with this, so why the hell not?

So in his career, Hawk hit .289. Hey, that's a pretty respectable average right there. Still, this means that Hawk failed at his job 71.1% of the time he came to the plate. During his career Hawk averaged about 327 at bats per season, so that means he failed around 232 times every year.

Well, during a single baseball game, I'm guessing there's an average of five pitches that even an umpire would admit he called wrong if he reviewed them all on video afterwards. Even that number may be generous, but for argument's sake, we'll just go with it.

So the ump fails five times a game, but of course, he sees anywhere from 225-300 pitches per game. So that means he's successful around 97.7 to 98.3% of the time. Hawk was succesful 28.9% of the time.

You think the umpire was questioning why he swung at so many bad pitches?

So, Hawk, sit back, relax, strap it down, and shut it the hell up. Please. Next time instead of bitching about an umpire's call, how about you try telling the folks at home something about the White Sox. Or just tell them another story about that one time Ted Williams said that one thing to you.

Whatever you want to do, just leave the arguing of balls and strikes to the players and managers. Sure, the players today fail just as much, but at least the bad call actually affects them.