Mike Winters

Not to be confused with Mike Winters (comedian).

Winters on August 2, 2008

Michael John Winters (born November 19, 1958 in Oceanside, California) is an umpire in Major League Baseball who has worked in the National League from 1988 to 1999 and throughout both major leagues since 2000. He umpired in the minor leagues from 1982 to 1989 before joining the NL's regular staff in 1990. He has officiated in the 1995 All-Star Game, six Division Series (1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2006), the 1997 and 2004 National League Championship Series and the 2008 National League Championship Series and the 2002, 2006, and 2010 World Series. He was crew chief for the Division Series in 1998 and 1999. On August 17, 1992, he was the home plate umpire for Kevin Gross' no-hitter.^[1] He currently lives in Carlsbad, California.

For the 2011 season, Winters was named crew chief following the retirements of Jerry Crawford, Mike Reilly, and Chuck Meriwether and his crew includes Mike Everitt, Mark Wegner, and Chris Guccione.

Controversy

On September 23, 2007, Winters was accused of "baiting" San Diego Padres outfielder Milton Bradley in a game against the Colorado Rockies. When Bradley came to the plate in the eighth inning, plate umpire Brian Runge told him that other umpires had stated Bradley had thrown his bat toward Runge following a strikeout in the fifth inning, which Bradley denied. After reaching first base, Bradley asked Winters if he had been one of the umpires, and Winters told him that he had indeed thrown his bat. Bradley began arguing about the allegation, and Winters replied that he should "shut the fuck up and play the game," whereupon Bradley continued to argue and complained that Winters was "treating him like a piece of (expletive)."^[2] Winters reportedly replied that Bradley was an "(expletive) piece of (expletive)," after which Bradley lunged at Winters and tore an anterior cruciate ligament in his knee while being restrained by manager Bud Black. Bradley later called Winters' reaction "the most unprofessional and most ridiculous thing I've ever seen. It's terrible. And now, because of him, my knee's hurt." Three days later, Major League Baseball suspended Winters for the remainder of the 2007 season due to his aiming a profanity at Bradley.^[3]

Former Giants player Charlie Hayes also accused Winters of telling him to "go fuck himself" after Hayes was ejected for arguing balls and strikes in a June 1998 game, after which Hayes had to be restrained by then manager Dusty Baker; Winters denied that he had said that.^[4]

References

1. ^ http://www.retrosheet.org/boxesetc/1992/B08170LAN1992.htm
2. ^ Passan, Jeff (2007-09-27). "Five and Fly: Decorum deficit". Yahoo! Sports. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/blog/mlb_experts/post/Five-and-Fly-Decorum-deficit?urn=mlb,46959. Retrieved 2007-09-29. 
3. ^ Blum, Ronald (2007-09-26). "Umpire Mike Winters suspended for remainder of regular season over Bradley flap". Associated Press via Yahoo! Sports. http://sports.yahoo.com/mlb/news?slug=ap-winterssuspended&prov=ap&type=lgns. Retrieved 2007-09-26. 
4. ^ Schulman, Henry (2007-09-25). "Padres' GM thinks S.F. will look to the stars". San Francisco Chronicle. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/09/25/SPI0SD5IK.DTL. Retrieved 2007-09-26. 

External links

• MLB.com profile
• Retrosheet

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Name	Winters, Mike
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Date of birth	1958-11-19
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