The 30 Greatest Acting Performances In “Bad” Movies

I had the idea to compile this list after a conversation a friend and I were having about actors cast in bad movies but still giving it their all and providing those films with performances that far exceed what should have been expected.

By “bad” movies, I don’t mean films that I personally deem as bad, as I like many of them, but I mean “bad” in the way that they were looked at critically at the time of their release or how the general public views them, whether or not they’re right or wrong. Often times, I disagree with the public consensus.

Anyway, this list isn’t something that should be quantified by ranking these performances. I just wanted to list out many that I thought were damn good in spite of the popular opinion about the movie’s overall quality.

With that, many of these are obviously going to be low-budget “genre” films. Some are also probably considered “exploitation” by various people. Then some are just goofy comedies or drama movies that probably actually were crap. Point being, I’m just looking at performances here and great ones exist in everything, regardless of genre, budget or a lack of surrounding talent.

So here we go!

-Raul Julia in Street Fighter
-Frank Langella in Masters of the Universe
-Michael Fassbender in Prometheus
-Margot Robbie in Suicide Squad & Birds of Prey
-Tim Roth in Planet of the Apes 2001.
-Josh Brolin in W & Jonah Hex
-Tobin Bell in the Saw sequels
-Eva Green in Dark Shadows
-Stephen Lang in a lot of his films
-Michael Parks in Tusk
-Viola Davis in a lot
-William Fichtner in Drive Angry & What’s The Worst That Could Happen
-Thomas Haden Church in Spider-Man 3
-Jasmine Guy in Harlem Nights
-Tim Curry in It
-Ben Affleck as Batman
-Bill Moseley in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2
-Walter Matthau in Dennis the Menace
-R. Lee Ermey in Saving Silverman
-Jeremy Irons in Dungeons & Dragons
-Martin Landau in Ready to Rumble
-Octavia Spencer in a lot
-Matthew McConaughey in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 4
-Will Smith in Suicide Squad
-Henry Cavill as Superman
-Charles Dance in Last Action Hero
-Eddie Redmayne in Jupiter Ascending
-Alan Rickman in CBGB
-Christopher Lee in a lot
-The ENTIRE cast of the Hobbit trilogy

If there are some that you think I missed, please feel free to list and discuss in the comments.

Talking Pulp Update (9/13/2021): Halloween Week and Thereafter

It’s been a really long time since I’ve posted a site update but I’ve been really ahead on content and the posts I’m writing are scheduled out about a month and a half into the future. Because of that, I lost track of time in regards to what I was scheduling and almost shot passed October without acknowledging the greatest month for horror movies.

So instead of my Halloween celebration, which typically goes on for several weeks, I’m going to be condensing a lot of content to the week of Halloween. Since it falls on a Sunday, I will have posts and reviews that weekend, the previous week and the previous weekend that are horror-centric. I’m also doubling down on the typical level of output, so it will be a week packed full of good shit.

Beyond Halloween, we come to Talking Pulp’s 5th Anniversary at the end of November. I’m also approaching 5000 posts and that’s a pretty significant milestone. I’m not sure what I’m going to do yet for that milestone and and upcoming anniversary. However, things may be pretty bleak going forward.

It seems like every year, leading into the final quarter, I start to think about ending this site. Well, I’m now leaning towards that decision stronger than ever.

For one, I already accomplished the goals I set out to accomplish when I first started Talking Pulp, as Cinespiria, back in 2016. So to be frank, I’m less enthused about putting as much work into this as I have for the past half decade.

Additionally, in the modern world, people seem to read less… a lot less. While subscribers and new readers grow, total visits and engagement have tanked. In fact, I used to get a comment or two on every post in the early days, when I got shit for traffic. Now, it’s been months since anyone has commented on anything.

While my mind is not 100 percent made up on this or when I would actually step away, I feel like the end is nigh.

Although, I don’t think I’d just pull the plug and nuke everything. I will most likely leave the site up and at some point, maybe I’ll have the urge to bring it back, full steam. Or, I may just post periodically when I see a new movie or read a new comic that I feel like I need to talk about or put a spotlight on.

I guess we’ll see in the next few months. But for those that still read this site regularly, I figured I’d give you all the heads up.

Ranking All the Movies Shown (Thus Far) on ‘The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs’ – UPDATED (After Season 3)

*Intro originally written after Season 1. Total movie count changed though.

Joe Bob Briggs is one of the most important Americans that ever walked God’s green Earth. In fact, he’s probably the greatest Texan that ever lived and that’s a huge state with a lot of history.

So when I heard that Joe Bob was coming back with a new show, I was ecstatic. But if you’re a loyal reader of Talking Pulp (and its original form: Cinespiria) then you already know this.

But it’s already been about a year and Joe Bob, thanks to the wonderful people at Shudder, has provided us with three marathons and a full season of The Last Drive-In.

Also, I have to give a special shout out to Darcy the Mail Girl, who is super fucking cool to the fans and because of this, breaks Twitter every Friday night.

With all that being said, I wanted to rank all 91 films that have been featured on The Last Drive-In (thus far).

These 91 motion pictures are ranked based off of what they were rated in their reviews here on Talking Pulp.

So without further ado, roll that beautiful scream footage!

1. Black Christmas (9.5 out of 10)
2. Phantasm (9 out of 10)
3. Hellraiser (9 out of 10)
4. The Changeling (9 out of 10)
5. Hellbound: Hellraiser II (8.75 out of 10)
6. The Exorcist III (8.75 out of 10)
7. The House of the Devil (8.75 out of 10)
8. Bride of Re-Animator (8.25 out of 10)
9. Heathers (8.25 out of 10)
10. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (8.25 out of 10)
11. The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (8 out of 10)
12. Demons (8 out of 10)
13. Deep Red (8 out of 10)
14. Train to Busan (8 out of 10)
15. The Love Witch (8 out of 10)
16. Basket Case (8 out of 10)
17. Class of 1984 (7.75 out of 10)
18. Evilspeak (7.75 out of 10)
19. Brain Damage (7.75 out of 10)
20. Re-Animator (7.5 out of 10)
21. Next of Kin (7.5 out of 10)
22. Day of the Beast (7.5 out of 10)
23. Mandy (7.5 out of 10)
24. Haunt (7.5 out of 10)
25. Chopping Mall (7.5 out of 10)
26. Fried Barry (7.5 out of 10)
27. Halloween (7.25 out of 10)
28. Maniac (7.25 out of 10)
29. Dead & Buried (7.25 out of 10)
30. Society (7.25 out of 10)
31. Sleepaway Camp (7 out of 10)
32. The Stuff (7 out of 10)
33. Blood Rage (7 out of 10)
34. Pieces (7 out of 10)
35. Maniac Cop 2 (7 out of 10)
36. Rabid (7 out of 10)
37. Audition (6.75 out of 10)
38. Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers (6.75 out of 10)
39. Phantasm III: Lord of the Dead (6.75 out of 10)
40. Silent Night, Deadly Night, Part 2 (6.75 out of 10)
41. Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II (6.5 out of 10)
42. Little Shop of Horrors (6.5 out of 10)
43. Tammy & the T-Rex (6.5 out of 10)
44. Dead Heat (6.5 out of 10)
45. The Prowler (6.5 out of 10)
46. Humanoids From the Deep (6.25 out of 10)
47. Wolf Guy (6.25 out of 10)
48. Q: The Winged Serpent (6.25 out of 10)
49. Maniac Cop (6 out of 10)
50. Victor Crowley (6 out of 10)
51. One Cut of the Dead (6 out of 10)
52. The House by the Cemetery (6 out of 10)
53. Bloodsucking Freaks (6 out of 10)
54. Deadly Games (6 out of 10)
55. Mother’s Day (6 out of 10)
56. Halloween 5: The Revenge of Michael Myers (6 out of 10)
57. WolfCop (6 out of 10)
58. Deathgasm (5.75 out of 10)
59. Christmas Evil (5.75 out of 10)
60. Sorority Babes In the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (5.75 out of 10)
61. Phantasm IV: Oblivion (5.5 out of 10)
62. Daughters of Darkness (5.5 out of 10)
63. Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (5.5 out of 10)
64. Contamination (5.5 out of 10)
65. Slumber Party Massacre II (5.5 out of 10)
66. Troma’s War (5.5 out of 10)
67. Street Trash (5.25 out of 10)
68. The Hills Have Eyes (5.25 out of 10)
69. Phantasm: Ravager (5 out of 10)
70. C.H.U.D. (5 out of 10)
71. Blood Harvest (4.75 out of 10)
72. Ginger Snaps (4.5 out of 10)
73. Hell Comes to Frogtown (4.5 out of 10)
74. Spookies (4.5 out of 10)
75. The Legend of Boggy Creek (4.5 out of 10)
76. Dead or Alive (4.25 out of 10)
77. Castle Freak (4 out of 10)
78. Demon Wind (4 out of 10)
79. Mayhem (3.5 out of 10)
80. Hack-O-Lantern (3.5 out of 10)
81. Tourist Trap (3 out of 10)
82. Cannibal Holocaust (3 out of 10)
83. Scare Package (3 out of 10)
84. Blood Feast (3 out of 10)
85. Sledgehammer (2.75 out of 10)
86. Hogzilla (2.5 out of 10)
87. Deadbeat at Dawn (2.5 out of 10)
88. Jack Frost (2.25 out of 10)
89. Tetsuo: The Iron Man (2 out of 10)
90. Madman (2 out of 10)
91. Things (0 out of 10)

Talking Pulp Update (3/9/2021): A Bit More Content Coming

I haven’t given an update in awhile, which I guess means that things have been going fairly smoothly.

However, I did cut back the content output at the beginning of the year due to being overworked and burnt out in my real job. Also, time was really scarce and I was working on some other things but also trying to take it easy.

I’m now way ahead on scheduling content. It’s early March but I have posts already written and scheduled out into the first week of May.

Because of that, I feel like I have a bit of a time buffer. So I’m going to bring back weekend posts starting on May 1st. I want to use Saturdays and Sundays to add in some extra film reviews and Vids I Dig posts. I think the general plan for the weekend reviews will just be me trying to work through my multiple streaming queues that have had films languishing there for years.

We’ve all got those movies floating around at the bottom of our queue barrels and it’s way past time that I work towards clearing them out.

Plus, I also have multiple lists I’ve compiled of films I need to cover for Talking Pulp. Between my multiple queues and these expansive lists, I’ve got several hundred if not well over a thousand motion pictures to work through. It’s a huge task and the lists will always grow but I never thought I’d have written 4500 posts/3600 reviews in under five years either.

Ideally, I wish that I could go back to publishing four-to-five posts per day like I was doing at this site’s peak but that’ll just lead to me crashing and burning again.

I need time for the real job, my side hustles and I have a book I need to work on, which I’m passionate about and overwhelmed by at the same time.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Expect weekend posting to return on Saturday, May 1st.

Retro Relapse: The Impact of Goonery On the Modern Game

RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.

*Written in 2016.

At this point, everyone should be aware of the Dennis Wideman incident from the other night.

If you aren’t, in a nutshell, he took a hard hit, which was missed by the refs. He responded by violently knocking down linesman Don Henderson. Now while Wideman says it wasn’t intentional, the video evidence is pretty damning. And whether or not he was dazed and meant to hit an opposing player, he still struck a referee and it was still a massive illegal hit even if he did strike a player.

Between this incident by the Calgary Flames, often times aggressive, defenseman and the recent sucker punch thrown by the Los Angeles Kings’ Milan Lucic, which also hit a ref, there has been a recent trend of Slap Shot style goonery.

The thing is, Slap Shot is a slapstick comedy movie and it is also about 40 years old. The NHL isn’t a backyard wrestling federation and has evolved significantly since those days. But some players still seem to draw inspiration from the fictional Hanson Bros. and the Charlestown Chiefs.

And sure, all the hockey purists, myself included, love a certain level of aggression in the sport. I will always defend fighting as part of the sport’s tradition and heritage. I’ve also seen the negative effects of what happens when you don’t allow fighting in hockey by witnessing ridiculous hits in the college and junior levels of the game where players have no real outlet to blow off steam other than smashing a guy into the boards more violently than necessary.

That is the point of fighting. It is to blow off steam or to let two men on the ice settle their beef with a bit of gentlemanly fisticuffs instead of an all out war on the human bodies of everyone in their vicinity.

At the end of the day, however, you never, ever hit an official.

But everything I am saying here is agreed upon by most, except for Neanderthals and pacifists.

I fully support the hefty suspension on Wideman and I think most people do. In fact, I may even say that it is too light. But that is up to the League to decide and they have.

If the NHL doesn’t make examples out of guys like Wideman and Lucic, things like this will become more commonplace. If that were to happen, there’d be a lot more push back by those opposed to hockey violence. More of these situations would add credibility to their argument. And even though these incidents aren’t true examples of what fighting in hockey is, it won’t matter. If the game is perceived as too violent, it is only a matter of time before the NHL has to crackdown.

If the NHL does feel as if its hand is forced to crackdown, we are looking at a league without fighting or a very diet form of fighting. The effects of that will create more violence in how the game is played on the ice. There will be harder hits and more injuries. This will have a bigger negative impact on the sport and be truly counterproductive to the solution pushed forward by those with these biases and criticisms. It’s like politics, some big change is born with good intentions but finds itself plagued by unintended consequences. Although, it doesn’t take a genius to see the writing on the wall.

The game is already evolving away from fighting anyway. I think it will always exist, to a degree, unless it is completely banned. But the old school giant goon of yesteryear is having a much harder time finding a job in the modern NHL. Teams would rather fill their rosters spots with snipers and d-men that can actually play defense. Also, the game is getting faster each year and big thugs can’t keep up with the action. And all this is reflected in the fact that fights have been decreasing each year.

Unfortunate things happen in hockey but it’s the same in all sports. Regardless, if it is caused by a few knuckleheaded individuals doesn’t matter to the busybodies. And that is why examples have to be made.

I just hope other players learn from incidents like these and have more respect for the game, their livelihood, the players and the officials on the ice.

Retro Relapse: Making ‘May Madness’ A Thing

RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.

*Written in 2015.

May Madness! Or should it be June Madness? Or maybe May-to-June Madness, as it plays out in two different months? Well, it starts at the end of May and goes into the end of June, so most games are played in June.

Regardless of what to officially call it, I love the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament, which culminates into the College World Series. In fact, I love it in the same way that I love March Madness a.k.a. the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament (I like the Women’s one too and the NIT Tournament).

The thing is, every time March rolls around, people all over America print their brackets, fill them out and duke it out with their friends over who knows the sport best. Truthfully, most people only watch the sport during March Madness and really don’t know as much as they think they do. But that is the cool thing about it, playing some stupid bracket game sparks a lot of interest in college basketball: ratings soar and everyone is glued to the television come Final Four time. College baseball could certainly use a similar spark and people could use some good summertime fun.

The thing that makes March Madness so exciting is the insane amount of teams that are in the tournament. College baseball is similar in that there are 64 teams in their tournament (out of 298 Division I programs), the same amount as the basketball tournament before they expanded it to 68 just a few years ago (a change I still don’t get). Additionally, like the basketball tournament, the conference winners get automatic bids and the rest of the field is selected by an NCAA committee.

However, there are a few things that make the baseball tournament different than the basketball tournament.

In March Madness, the basketball teams play in a “one and done” scenario. You lose once, you’re out of the tournament and that’s it. In the baseball tournament, it is a bit more complicated although more interesting.

In college baseball, teams don’t find themselves in a “one and done” situation. They are divided into sixteen regional brackets with a double-elimination format. Regional champions then face each other in eight Super Regionals. The eight winners of those contests then go on to be the participants in the College World Series, which is essentially baseball’s version of basketball’s Final Four, except there are eight teams instead of four.

In the College World Series, teams are split into two groups of four and play a double-elimination format. When it gets down to the final four teams, they play in a best of three series in the semifinals and finals.

It is harder for the average Joe to follow but those of us who follow collegiate baseball, don’t find it that difficult and like the fact that it is a more complex playoff system. Although, it isn’t perfect and for the betterment of the sport, I’m not opposed to some changes to make it more accessible to the masses. Besides, with more accessibility comes more viewership and hopefully, a lot more excitement which will only better the sport of baseball at the collegiate level.

The “one and done” style of college basketball and the large number of participants is what makes it really unpredictable and exciting. Upsets happen on a pretty frequent basis but no one seems to have a problem with the system, as it is. Well, the vast majority of people, anyway.

College baseball could benefit from getting rid of the double-elimination format and go for a straight up 64 team bracket. However, to make it more balanced to what currently exists, I would propose making each round a best of three series, which would still require a double-elimination (or two-loss) scenario.

Where this would make May Madness more exciting than March Madness is that people filling out their brackets could have the option of picking the winner and the amount of games played – a good way to determine tiebreakers.

I’d also like to see the baseball Final Four expand to at least a best of five series: seven would be better.

I’m just a fan of college baseball and a fan of March Madness and think that the energy surrounding the NCAA Basketball Tournament could carry over to another great sport with a similar playoff system already in play. Besides, it’s not like you can do this with college football, which just started a playoff system that is only comprised of four teams. And I love NCAA hockey but they don’t have enough teams to have anything bigger than a sixteen team tournament.

College baseball is the only thing that could provide the world with a proper spin-off of the mega successful March Madness monster. Besides, what else is going on in sports this time of year? Football, hockey and basketball are in their off season and Major League Baseball is in the long drawn out middle of their regular season: gearing up for a joke of an All-Star Game.

Well, I guess I’ll watch the third and final game of the College World Series tonight and continue to dream of a sport that could grow much larger and potentially open the doors of bracketology pandemonium during the summer.

Retro Relapse: Fighting In Hockey

RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.

*Written in 2014.

There are a lot of busybody nobodies out there bitching about fighting in hockey. I get it though, we live in a much softer and politically correct society than generations prior.

However, in our neutered societal state, hockey is a safe haven, where men are still men (except Sidney Crosby) and we can find solace in the fact that some things never change and that if you start trouble, someone will be there to punch you in the face. It is called retaliation and it is a major part of hockey.

Now there are a lot of good arguments out there for the banishment of ending fighting in hockey and I get a lot of the points made. I understand that concussions are horrible, especially in the long-term and if a player receives multiple. I also understand that a player can have a longer career, if he isn’t getting his teeth knocked out. Additionally, hockey players would have better smiles. There are plenty of realistic negatives that can happen to a human body that gets pummeled on a regular basis.

Many of these people though, are the same people who want to ban boxing and mixed martial arts. Some of them even think that American football is too dangerous for the athletes that participate.

Here’s the thing. These athletes are adults. These adults know the risk of the sport that they play. They still decide to play these sports anyway. Sure, one could point to them being motivated by seven-to-eight figure salaries but the fact of the matter is, you have to be one of the best in the world to earn yourself that millionaire status. So what does that say about the millions of athletes who participate in these sports that never make it? They certainly aren’t getting pummeled for huge contracts.

These critics of fighting in hockey are missing the point. For the most part, these men are tough as nails and they certainly don’t need a bunch of pansies who never played the game speaking for them. They are adults that make their own adult decisions. Again, they know the risks and they still play. That is their choice. If you find hockey too dangerous, don’t play it. If you find it too “barbaric” to watch, then don’t watch it. These men don’t need nannies and would probably punch one in the face.

This isn’t some alpha male rant, this is reality. And the reality of this situation is that fighting is ingrained in hockey culture. It is a part of the sport, an important part.

Yes, you could argue that the game would be better if it were more of a skills showcase than a land of thugs but those who make that argument apparently don’t watch the sport. For the most part, each game is a showcase of elite skill and prowess on the ice. There is more finesse in the game today than there has ever been. However, there is still that fighting element that exists because in the heat of battle, it is necessary. Is it a land of thugs? Certainly not.

A hockey enforcer (or goon, as many call them) is the sport’s version of the retaliatory pitch in baseball. And like in baseball, it is employed to send a message and to protect the team’s star players. It shouldn’t be used to intentionally hurt or maim another player and for the most part, it doesn’t. Things can get out of hand, in hockey and in baseball, but in this day and age, fines, suspensions and other punishments are handed out pretty quickly when a player crosses that line. There are checks and balances in the system.

People can get hurt pretty badly in a hockey fight, as they can with a retaliatory pitch, but serious injuries aren’t as common as the sensationalist sports media would like you to assume. Players can also get hurt pretty bad just falling on the ice or hitting the boards. Are you going to remove the ice and boards too? Maybe they’ll just play field hockey on a field made out of pillows, sticks made out of pool noodles and a lemon as a puck.

This growing anti-fighting coalition wants to constantly point out how barbaric humans are, especially men. It shares and promotes similar ideas that have been espoused by those embracing extreme feminism. You know, those people out there who see manliness as a sort of primal Neanderthalism that has no place in our prissy modern world.

What this faulty idealism fails to realize and accept is that men (and all humans, actually) need to work out their aggression and angst in a healthy way. When the hunter-gatherer way of life ended, men needed new ways to express their manliness and feel bad ass. Thus came sports, which weren’t just games but physical competitions against one another to see who was the best and the king of the tribe.

Many can point to ancient gladiatorial sports and their bloodshed but we have evolved way passed that. Besides, men were usually forced to fight each other and didn’t participate in those gladiator games voluntarily. Many were slaves or captured enemies forcibly thrown to the lions for the entertainment of their captors.

Hockey is not that same sort of barbarism and shouldn’t be compared to it. Yet that is one of the most common arguments, as those criticizing the sport’s violence like to paint a picture of men, who they perceive as victims of an outdated barbaric system, being sacrificed for the entertainment of the savage-hearted spectator. When you really look at this argument, it is bullshit.

Unfortunately, we live in a very reactionary world and if a player were to get hit and killed, whether from a punch or a hard smack to the ice or the boards, the nanny police will come out in full force, the media will provide them their soapbox and the sport will probably be forced to ban fighting. While I hope this never happens and I never want to see a player get hurt, especially killed, I could see this happening.

In the end, banning fighting in hockey would kill the spirit of the sport and probably cause more problems on the ice than what people perceive there to be now. There is a reason for an enforcer and retaliation. Without it, you open the door to greater danger and a dirtier game.

More of this, please:

Talking Pulp Update (1/4/2021): New Year Notification Nonsense!

Well, vacation’s over!

I’m back to working a dreadful and inhumane five-day work week for the first time since before Halloween. I’m a fan of four days on and three days off. An extra day of rest actually makes me more productive over four days of work than I typically am over five but whatever.

So I’ve noticed that my notifications don’t seem to pop up all that often and I didn’t see any of them over the course of my ten or so days off. WordPress has continued to suck in new ways for awhile now. So I guess I have to manually check this shit from now on, assuming I’ll remember because I like whiskey and edibles.

If I miss comments or even feedback and messages through the back end, it’s not my fault. I pay for all the premium shit, so WordPress should polish those fucking bells and whistles that the basic plan has, especially for ballers like me dropping extra coin.

Anyway, Happy New Year! Not that it’ll be all that happy thanks to further lockdowns, more restrictions made up as reactionary power grabs on the fly, the complete destruction of small businesses, skyrocketing suicide rates, crybaby “do as your told!” assholes and the continued erosion of personal freedoms! Can’t wait to see what Orwellian bullshit a new administration throws at us! Sorry, I try not to get political on here but life is really damn hard without strippers, buffets and movie theaters.

Oh, yeah… I live in Florida… so, never mind! Hooray me!

Talking Pulp Update (12/25/2020): It’s Christmas Time! So I’m Kind of On Vacation… Because That’s What I Do!

So I’m taking it easy this next week due to it being my annual week off between Christmas and New Year’s.

However, I schedule posts out in advance and will have some comic book reviews and Vids I Dig posts going up each day while I deal with my family and friends complaining that I only give them cash and gift cards.

It’s not my fault that they don’t own crypto wallets!

Maybe I should be better at buying presents and I did really damn good, last year. But this year, as with most years, I didn’t realize it was Christmas time until about December 20th.

It’s not my fault that my birthday is a week earlier! Honestly, that usually means that I’m hungover for 7-10 days after celebrating harder than Stallone’s abs in Rambo: First Blood, Part II.

Anyway, Merry Christmas to you and yours and thanks for reading Talking Pulp this year! My life has become significantly busier with some changes thanks to 2020 and its ancient curses but I keep working to keep this site alive.

So hopefully 2021 will be a much better year for all of us because I can’t imagine a year that’s any worse than this shitshow.

Retro Relapse: Umpires Are Sensitive Egomaniacal Bitches

RETRO RELAPSE is a series of older articles from various places where I used to write before Talking Pulp.

*Written in 2015.

I hate baseball umpires more than the officials of any other sport. While baseball is and will always be my favorite sport, the men (and I use “men” lightly) that officiate the game are overly sensitive, power hungry, egomaniacal bitches.

Last night was just another example of this.

After what was perceived as a bad call, Torii Hunter of the Minnesota Twins started arguing with the umpire. He was actually fairly calm about it. But within just a few seconds, the home plate umpire lost his cool and ejected Hunter. He also immediately ejected Twins manager Paul Molitor who walked out to backup his player, as a manager does in these situations.

Hunter then lost his cool in a tantrum that saw him strip off his uniform and yell until he walked off the field in disgust.

Some people may think Hunter overreacted. I don’t, I think the umpire was a big bitch that needs to toughen up, grow some fucking balls and put his ego in check. Besides, if you eject a player for getting mad about a call, once he’s ejected, what is to then stop him from escalating his tirade? A fine? A suspension?

A guy like Hunter is a multimillionaire and he doesn’t care about some bullshit fine. He also probably doesn’t care about a suspension either, as the monetary hit isn’t going to come close to breaking him and he may benefit from a few days rest.

Rewind back to a few weeks ago. Bryce Harper of the Washington Nationals was ejected twice in one week under similar circumstances, although he was visibly more heated than Hunter. In a press conference following his second ejection, Harper hit the nail on the head when he said:

I don’t think 40,000 people came to watch him ump tonight. Plain and simple, I really don’t think they did. Especially when we’re playing the Yankees. The Yankees are a good team, we’re a good team and we’re rolling. I don’t want to get tossed. There’s no reason for me to get tossed in that situation. I don’t think I did anything bad to get tossed. Maybe he just had a bad morning or he didn’t get his coffee.

Bryce Harper is right, the fans didn’t buy a ticket to watch an umpire putting on a show.

The thing is, power is a fucked up thing. Some can handle it, some can’t. Umpires have always been cantankerous jerks throughout baseball’s century and a half of history. That doesn’t mean that they have to abuse their power. And it certainly doesn’t mean that Major League Baseball has to coddle their officials, as if they can do no wrong.

Look, I get that an umpire has a tough job and that there is a high level of stress in the position but if anything, that should make them relate to the pressure a Major League Baseball player is under. And more often than not, when a player gripes about a call, it is because the umpire didn’t just make a bad call once, he made several over multiple at-bats. Sure, some players have unjustifiably lost their shit but not as much as umpires have unjustifiably lost theirs.

These umpires remind me of the asshole cops out there who overstep their bounds and use their power and their badge to justify horrible behavior. Many think that they are above the law and thrive on that high. They have a god complex and anytime someone challenges that, they can toss them out of a game, just as a shitty cop can toss someone in jail (or worse) for expressing displeasure.

It has gotten to the point in baseball, where if you even question an official, you’re out of the game and that’s that.

While Major League Baseball is so focused on protecting the integrity of the game in every way it can, their attitude that the umpire is always right is foolhardy and ridiculous. People make mistakes, umpires are people. And many of these people don’t have great track records.

When an umpire, like the one last night, throws a player out of a game over nothing and then walks away, as other umps try and get the irate batter off of the field, that umpire looks like an overly sensitive bitch and someone with a severe ego problem.

In other sports, athletes get in referees faces all the time, more so than in baseball. How often do they get ejected from a game though? There is just something with these baseball umpires that needs to be checked and this is an example of the archaic culture surrounding Major League Baseball.

I also get that this is part of the sport and part of the show. But when it comes to the pure competition of what is happening on the field, shit like this is a distraction and hurts the essence of the game itself. This is baseball, a sport. This isn’t World Wrestling Entertainment. People aren’t paying to see the Authority screw over Daniel Bryan day after day. What happens within the confines of the contest itself is the story that should be told. The umpires aren’t the stars, nor should they be, and their overreactions make baseball look like an episode of Jerry Springer.

Now I’m not calling for umpires to be replaced with computers, as some have suggested, but something needs to be done. I’m also not saying that all umpires are egomaniacal bitches but there are certainly many who fit the bill. Maybe they need psychological evaluations on a regular basis.

And sure, the sport has always been this way but it does seem as if the tolerance of umpires is at an all-time low.

Then again, maybe they are just rejected wannabe ballplayers that never amounted to anything and this is their way of getting revenge. Kind of like the bullied kid in high school who goes on to become successful, only to use his success to punish those who wronged him. Even though those being punished aren’t the same people who wronged him.

Is this situation fixable? Yes. Will it be fixed? No. And that folks, is baseball.