Over the weekend, MLB umpire Doug Eddings, possessed by the new spirit of Lake America, demanded rookie St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Hancel Rincon straighten up his hat. In a 2-0 count, Colorado Rockies utility hitter Cole Carrigg at the plate, Doug Eddings picked on the smallest guy in the yard, Hancel Rincon in his MLB debut, issuing the neophyte a pitch clock violation, then ejecting his manager—Rincon’s hat a tad too askew for Eddings’s delicate taste.
Umpire Doug Eddings went on a power trip during the bottom of the 6th in the Cardinals Rockies game.
First, he demanded that pitcher Hancel Rincon (in his MLB debut) straighten his hat since no one will wear a hat like that on “his field”.
When manager Oli Marmol went to talk… pic.twitter.com/ei4rCAalxq
— Umpire Auditor (@UmpireAuditor) September 5, 2026
“The batter said, ‘Hey, can he wear his hat like that?’” Eddings told the Post-Dispatch. “I really didn’t know, but it was really, really crooked. I asked the catcher to tell him to straighten his hat out, and the pitcher did.”
Doug claims a Rockies hitter made the complaint and he was simply relaying that message to the Cardinals. All-Star catcher Hunter Goodman was the first batter of the inning but he denies even caring about a hat.
“I never once mentioned the hat,” Goodman said, according to MLB.com. “It doesn’t matter who’s pitching. I don’t care how they wear the hat. I’m trying to find out where the ball is coming out, and I’m trying to worry about what I’m doing in the box. I’m not worried about how his hat looks.”
Goodman stepping on that excuse with the quickness. No batter believed they were disadvantaged by the angle of Hancel Rincon’s hat. Eddings picked on a guy with more swag than him.
Kramer screaming the n-word at the laugh factory, Doug Eddings must’ve pissed the wife off or discovered his daughter dates a young man with Hancel’s complexion, go mode. Lizard brain took over.
But remove the racial dynamics for a sec—still very funny for this referee to embarrass and then punish a kid on his first day of work and then lie, blaming a hitter, one of the best hitters in baseball—whose stats lend him the credibility to believably tell us he doesn’t give a shit about a pitcher’s hat direction.
We all have brutal days at work. I recommend taking those frustrations out on a weed pen, or like, go watch a movie. Have you seen The Drama?? fire.
You’ll want to avoid lashing out on the style choices of the Latin players who escaped famine, their boldness and confidence instrumental in freeing them from poverty—then blaming the closest guy next to you for your random “fuck this job” outburst, live on national television.
Whatever Doug Eddings was actually mad at, I promise it’s his boss’s fault, not Hancel Rincon. That’s almost always true.
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