MLB: Umpire Hernández blew calls, losing World Series job

NEW YORK (AP) — Ángel Hernández was on track to umpire in the 2018 World Series before getting overturned three times at first base on video reviews during Game 3 of that year’s AL Division Series between the New York Yankees and Boston, MLB wrote in response to his latest legal filing.

The Cuba-born Hernández was hired as a big league umpire in 1993 and sued in 2017, alleging he was discriminated against because he had not been assigned to the World Series since 2005 and had been passed over for crew chief.

U.S. District Judge J. Paul Oetken granted a summary judgment to MLB in March 2021, and Hernández asked the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February to throw out Oetken's decision.

Hernández served as an interim crew chief from 2011-16, at the start of the pandemic-delayed 2020 season and for part of the 2021 season, but has not been made a permanent crew chief.

“Hernández has not presented, and the record does not contain, a scintilla of evidence that MLB’s actions were based on his race or national origin,” MLB wrote in a 58-page filing Wednesday.

MLB said Hernández does not have a legal basis to claim that he need not show discrimination statistically because of the relatively small sample sizes involved in his case.

Kevin Murphy, Hernández’s lawyer, did not respond to an email seeking comment.

In its reply brief Wednesday, MLB wrote that Joe Torre, then chief baseball officer, selected Hernández for the Division Series in 2018 “with the intention of providing him an opportunity to umpire in the World Series that year.”

“Hernández did not capitalize on that opportunity and did not rise to the occasion,” MLB wrote. “This was the first time since the advent of expanded instant replay in 2014 that an umpire had