Angel Hernandez gets unwavering support from the worst possible source

The worst umpire in baseball retired earlier this week, but as is the case in modern media, both sides-ism is at play with Angel Hernandez. Hernandez called balls and strikes, among many other things, for over three decades. By the end of his tenure, he was downright terrible, causing memorable chaos like this at-bat with Wyatt Langford.

Need I say more?

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone came to Hernandez's defense on Tuesday, but his argument didn't help the case of other umpires.

“Honestly, I think sometimes he’s unfairly the poster child or the face of bad umpiring or whatever it may be,” Boone said via Talkin’ Yanks. “To me, there is worse umpires out there. I feel like there’s some things that are a little unfairly attributed to him. Look, he’s earned a lot of it and whatever, but at the end of the day he is a really good dude and certainly wish him the best… He’s always handled everything with a lot of grace.”

Boone's argument is that Hernandez is the face of a bad product. While umpires get more calls correct these days than at any point in history, they are also scrutinized far more thanks to social media and television broadcasts which, unlike previous decades, object to every bad decision.

Cowboy Joe West comes to the defense of Angel Hernandez

If there is any umpire worse than Hernandez, it's Joe West. While West retired a few years ago, thus leaving Hernandez to fend for himself as the face of mediocrity, he's remained a critical part of the game and how it's called. West came to Hernandez's defense just days after his retirement announcement.

"I think y'all gave him a raw deal," West said. "I'll tell you this. He retired this week, and he put out a statement. And his statement was that he enjoyed what he did for all these years. And whether you want to believe him or not, he was good at it."

Good? We're really going to die on that hill? Hernandez was productive enough to umpire at the MLB level, which means he was far better at it than you or I. When compared to others in his craft, however, it's tough to argue with the numbers, as well as reactions from players across MLB.

"You can say, well he missed this pitch or he missed that pitch," West continued. "You can do that with anybody. When you get on a rant like that, it's easy to follow a guy and say, 'oh he missed this pitch.'"

Yes, Joe. We can say that, because in many cases Angel did miss those pitches. The league and umpires union didn't feel confident enough in Hernandez to allow him to call a World Series or even league championship series. The last time Hernandez was deemed competent at his job was 2016.

Revisionist history is unnecessary here.