Umpire Angel Hernandez Retires After 33 Years of MLB

Longtime MLB umpire Angel Hernandez confirmed he is retiring, telling USA Today he wants to spend more time with his family. The 62-year-old umpire who began his big league career in the National League 33 years ago, in May 1991, winds down his eventful major league on-field experience with over 3,800 regular season games worked, 12 Division Series, eight League Championship Series, and two World Series.

Hernandez drew national ire in 2013 when, as acting crew chief, his crew reviewed and ultimately upheld an Oakland Athletics double off the high left field wall in Cleveland. Although replays indicate the batted ball hit a railing beyond the wall and caromed back into the field—MLB stated it should have been a home run—and A's manager Bob Melvin was ejected arguing that point, we would come to find out that the replay angles the crew had access to on the circa-2013 in-stadium "limited replay" monitor, which was a small screen by today's standards were inconclusive, according to MLB's Terence Moore, who wrote, "I agree with the umpires."

Nonetheless, the national spectacle that followed resulted in the modern Replay Operations Center headquarters in New York we see today, a $30 million project that doesn't include the annual $2+ million salaries of the two additional umpire crews that staff it, added to the then-68 full-time MLB umpires for a modern-day roster of 76 (not including the costs of non-umpire Replay HQ staff).

Hernandez changed baseball in a different way in 2017, filing a lawsuit against the league in which he alleged racially-motivated and national origin-motivated discrimination.

Although this opened Hernandez up to further ridicule—such a reporters facetiously adding accents to the letters "á" in his name despite its spelling never containing accents before, a practice that continues to this day (seriously, look at the MLB Umpire Media Guide where umpires who want accents in their names [such as Alfonso Márquez] have them there, Hernandez is unaccented in all legal proceedings, etc.)—his lawsuit opened the door for other umpires who may have avoided baseball due to an undoubtedly discriminatory past. 

And although Hernandez lost his suit and appeal, uncovering potential problems in baseball spurred the sport to change how it conducts business to include more umpires in its community, as well as perhaps inspired other umpires to speak out against discriminatory practices (note: we have yet to discuss a 2024 discrimination suit recently filed by an umpire who worked in the minor leagues).

After an eventful career, Hernandez walks away from baseball having fundamentally made his mark.

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Alternate Link: Angel Hernandez is retiring. Let's look back at his career...and controversy