R.A. Dickey’s recent one-hitter against the Baltimore Orioles was his second consecutive one-hit performance and Baltimore’s manager is crediting the knuckleballer’s success to a massive conspiracy implicating every single umpire in baseball. Buck Showalter felt his Orioles team was being squeezed on Monday night by home plate umpire Eric Cooper, and then went on a crazy postgame rant in which he credited Dickey’s performance last night and in his recent starts on all the MLB umpires colluding to call each of Dickey’s swerving knuckleballs as strikes.
“The fix is in!” Showalter screamed at his postgame press conference after the Mets’ 5-0 win over Baltimore. “Cooper and the rest of the umpires in this damn league are, for some reason, giving this Dickey fellow every strike call! How are my guys supposed to make good at-bats if every ridiculous knucklepitch they see is called a strike? I swear, if I see Dickey throw another one-hitter because of the umpiring then I’m gonna have to take that guy out myself!”
Showalter become so animated and furious at the press conference that security had to restrain him. He was seen visibly foaming at the mouth and muttering things to himself.
MLB announced they won’t even look into the possible illegal collusion of umpires regarding Dickey’s recent success and commissioner Bud Selig said, “Buck has been known to get a little crazy from time-to-time, I’m sure he’ll snap out of it soon.”
