It seems we've been down this road before with Houston Astros infielder Bill Hall.

Why yes, it was just this past March, when Hall went off on a postgame tirade labeling Philadelphia Phillies lefty Cole Hamels a marked man after an incident in the middle of a Grapefruit League game.

I mentioned at the time that Hall and Hamels wouldn't have a chance to meet up again for quite some time, and that I hoped by the time that matchup happened again, Hall would have something else to occupy his mind.

Well, I'm not sure Hall's mindset has changed much, but at least he has a new target. That being umpire Tom Hallion, who ejected Hall in the seventh inning of Thursday's 10-4 loss to the Cincinnati Reds for a combination of questioning balls and strikes and taking his sweet time getting back into the batter's box between pitches.


Here's an excerpt of Hall's side of the story courtesy Ultimate Astros:

Q: Was it one of the called strikes that got you mad?

A: One of? He missed the first two. Weren't strikes. I didn't really say anything to him, and once I got out of the box, he was yelling at me, cussing me out, telling me to get the (expletive) in the box. You don't rush anybody else to get in the box. Just because I disagree with the pitch, I still didn't say anything to you about it, so there's no reason to rush me into the box.

After I swung and missed at the third one, I cussed myself out. I didn't look towards him. I said 'dammit' going back to the dugout, and he threw me out of the game. It was just ridiculous. The whole situation was ridiculous. You are mad at me because you're missing pitches, but at the same time I'm not disrespecting you, but he felt the need to disrespect me.

Hall had plenty more to say on the incident and his feelings on the state of umpiring in baseball, so check out that link for the entire transcript.

It's interesting to note that the common denominator between today's face-off and his run-in with Hamels is Hall's routine between pitches came into question both times. Hall, obviously feeling disrespected in some way, says there's no reason to rush him back into the box. But if it's at the point where you're rubbing multiple people the wrong way, maybe there's an adjustment he needs to make in that routine.

And maybe Major League Baseball needs to step in with a warning. We've seen them come down on pitchers for taking too long, even fining Jonathan Papelbon in 2009. And we've seen an increase of umpires rejecting batters requests for timeout in the box. This could be a good time for MLB to reinforce what's acceptable and what isn't as far as a hitter settling in to the box.

At the very least there has to be a better way than having an umpire throw around expletives or a pitcher having to send his own message via a fastball at the ribcage.