Apart from my radical free-trade notions (which I defend by positing that free trade will benefit the most people in the long run), many folks consider me to be a socialist sympathizer. I don't dissuade them from this belief. In fact, I'm happy to embrace that description. I'm so far that way that I supported the baseball players back in 1994 when they struck, a strike which did not garner widespread popular support. Basically, I thought the owners (who all made their fortunes exploiting the capitalist system) were being hypocrites by trying to impose a socialist order on the players.

Yes, hypocrisy will offend me more than dogma any day.

Now we have the whinings of the major-league umpires.

Their negotiator, Richie Phillips, decided that the only way to get the owners' attention was to have all the umpires submit their resignations. The plan was for the owners to cave in and re-hire the umps on better terms. Phillips thought (I guess) that this was the only way to ensure minimal interference from Major League Baseball on the way umpires go about their business.

My first problem with the umps began right there. Issues of pay are certainly worthy of debate, but you don't hear unions insisting to car companies that they get to decide how to make the cars. Safety concerns, vacations, structure of control, etc., all those are negotiated. But engineers design the cars, and the workers build them. The league has every right to tell umpires how to call balls and strikes. That's, um, why there's a rulebook. To be fair, since the first salvo the umpires have made their control argument a bit more technical, and I address that later on.

In any case, I was skeptical of the umps' worries from the start. Then, after the leagues accepted the resignations of 22 umpires (something they had every right to do, I'd say), there came a fusillade of ignorant comments from some umpires.

"I won't work for scabs," Terry Tata said. Well, there's no way the union can call the new guys scabs. The umpires quit, fair and square. Just because MLB hired replacements doesn't mean those new umps are "replacement workers." There's no strike, remember?

"This is about families getting ruined," said umpire Tom Hallion. Again, this is overstating the case. All of the umpires will receive severance payments, some as high as $400,000. All of the umpires will be eligible for pensions. And these guys were making good money, between $75,000 and $250,000 a year. Okay, maybe little Billy doesn't get to go to Bennington next year. Life goes on.

It is quite true that Phillips helped the umpires gain respect, better pay and better working conditions. He's done a hell of a job in that respect. But he decided to play hardball, he didn't count the votes in his camp beforehand and he got beaned.

The only way the mass resignation tactic had a prayer of working was if all the umpires held fast with it. No one wanted to see a post-season umpired by triple-A umps (though the ones I see here in Durham are generally very good). But not all the umps resigned, and a number of those who did rescinded their resignations. Now, some of those then resubmitted their quit notices (that's some serious waffling), but the damage had been done. So Phillips filed suit against the MLB, claiming unfair labor practices.

The umpires contend that because they are technically hired and fired by the individual leagues (American and National) that someone in the commissioner's office can't oversee them. The owners say that since everything is part of Major League Baseball, commissioner oversight isn't a problem and is allowed by the labor contract. This is a complicated legal argument, and a judge could easily go either way on it. Not the sort of issue for laying lay your head on a guillotine with the blade on your neck, as one umpire put it.

But many of them did, and a bunch of those lost their jobs. The thing is, I can't find any pity in my heart for the guys. Even with all of my union sympathies, even with my "stick it to the big guy" attitude, I can't get worked up over the umpires' plight.

It's their own damned fault. And there's no other way to see it. The umpires got punched out. I hope their golden parachutes open properly.

Jon Worley attends Durham Bulls games every so often. On Friday night, an ump hustled to make the correct call on a tight play. He hopes that guy got the call up to the bigs.