In Praise Of Don Denkinger

The explosion of vitriol I vented last night brought up a painful reminder. No matter how much I love the game of hockey I have to admit they have the worst standard of officiating of any major professional sport in America. MLS used to be the worst, but you can attribute that to being a new league with understandably inexperienced officiating crews who have raised their standard over the years. NFL officiating is notoriously uneven, but good work is often done. The NBA has its problems (like officials getting caught throwing games), but overall the reputation of the average gameday crew isn't abysmal.

The gold standard in officiating has to be the MLB umpires. Yes, there are annoying aspects to their work, like umpires who seem unable to call a consistent strike zone or who deliberately try to antagonize players, but in general they do good work and they do it in a conscientious manner.

Even as notorious a blunder as Don Denkinger's blown call in the '85 World Series shows the superiority of the average MLB umpire. It says something about the integrity of baseball that the first thing Denkinger did when he got off the field was to ask Peter Ueberroth if he got it right. Fundamentally that is what every MLB umpire wants to do, get it right, and it shows. The average NHL official seems more interested in their ego and throwing their weight around than in getting calls right. The worst of the worst, like Mick McGeough, seem to develop personal animosity towards players and teams (for McGeough that would include St. Louis and Edmonton) and they officiate through the prism of their prejudices. You always get the feeling that when McGeough skates off the ice he doesn't ask anyone "Did I get it right?" but instead says "I taught those punks a lesson."

You never got the feeling that someone like Denkinger "had it in" for the Cardinals. Denkinger always made it clear that he wished he had gotten the call right, because getting it right was what was important to him. Certainly every Cards fan wished he had gotten it right too (and maybe that he wasn't behind the plate for Game 7 either when everyone's emotions were so raw), but certainly it never seemed to be about Denkinger's ego.

The NHL could learn something from the likes of Don Denkinger. They won't, but they could.