Bullying Works: Jeff Passan Believes That Fans On Social Media Played a Big Part In The Exit Of Angel Hernandez

Dustin Satloff. Getty Images.

We're less than week into the post-Angel Hernandez era of baseball and I've got to say, it feels great. The bad man is gone. No more can he ruin a game before our very eyes and permanently damage the youth's vision of America's past-time. 

The resulting discourse from Angel's departure though has been whether or not fans should feel guilty for putting the crazy man out to pasture. According to Jeff Passan, social media (all of us) played a big part in this going down and subsequently ousting Angel from the game. 

(Awful Announcing) “A lot of that stuff, frankly, led to him going away. He got tired of it. He got tired of the social media firestorm that exists. Frankly, I will acknowledge this is understandable because there are parts of his job where he was genuinely bad. And it was magnified by the ubiquity of baseball on social media now. And how every time he would do something wrong, it would get put out there. And then it would almost just compound upon itself..You just had this echo chamber of Ángel Hernández awfulness that, I think, in the end, wound up being part of his undoing.”

You know how I'm reading that? WE did it! We somehow broke the umpire union's impenetrable armor. For years we were told there was nothing that could be done. As long as Angel wanted to keep doing this, he would remain in power. That was until the heroes of social media got together and pushed forward with their revolt. Now look what happened! Passan is essentially crediting those on Twitter who constantly circulated his bad calls with the final blow. While it seems the aim of his words is to paint us in a guilty light, I see this as a crowning achievement by all of us. Without the power of social media bullying, these calls are still happening. 

Social media can be unbelievably toxic. In this instance it was utilized for the better of mankind. Now are there other terrible umpires still out there? Of course. C.B. Bucknor, Hunter Wendelstedt, Laz Diaz, and Ron Kulpa still pollute the game. Hey, maybe seeing the wrath of what baseball twitter can do will urge those morons to get on top of their shit. Or they continue on their way in the hopes MLB gives them their own golden parachute on their way out of the league. Either way, Angel had to be stopped and it seems baseball twitter came through with a giant assist. You're welcome, MLB.