We all have bad days at the office. On the afternoon of May 2 at Coors Field, umpire Tim Welke jammed the printer, spilled the toner and forgot to mail the invoices with 30,276 observers diligently taking notes.

In the sixth inning of an 8-5 Colorado win over the Los Angeles Dodgers, Rockies third baseman Chris Nelson made a diving stop on Jerry Hairston Jr., jumped to his feet and threw across the diamond to Todd Helton, who made a deft pickup at first base. Problem was, Helton was half an Altuve removed from the bag when Welke signaled "out."

Tempers flared, words were exchanged and the incident was quickly forgotten by everyone except the principals, who waited three weeks before making their peace during a Dodgers-Astros game at Chavez Ravine. Before his first at-bat, Hairston stepped into the box and had a brief, respectful exchange with Welke, a big league umpire since 1984.

"He said he had a tough angle on it, and he just missed it," Hairston said. "Hey, you move on. I joked with him. I told him, 'If I'm stuck on 2,999 hits at the end of my career, I'm going to give you a call.'"

Toronto's Brett Lawrie got a four-game suspension for his helmet-tossing tirade directed at home plate umpire Bill Miller. Brad White/Getty Images

Umpires make mistakes in the course of doing a very difficult job. Players and managers dissent, and in the vast majority of cases they swallow their anger and move forward. But this year, umps and uniformed personnel are on their way to setting a record for peevishness. They're baseball's answer to the Hatfields and McCoys -- or George Will and Donald Trump.

Toronto third baseman Brett Lawrie recently flung his helmet in anger over two suspect called strikes by umpire Bill Miller, and a Twitter civil war erupted over who was most at fault. White Sox broadcaster Hawk Harrelson questioned Mark Wegner's competence and received an admonishing phone call from principal (aka commissioner) Bud Selig. And during a Tigers road trip, manager Jim Leyland and third-base coach Tom Brookens were ejected twice and fellow coaches Lloyd McClendon and Gene Lamont were each tossed once for arguing calls. It was like an eight-game tribute to Bobby Cox.

How's this for weirdness? On May 30, home plate umpire Laz Diaz insisted on throwing the ball back to the pitcher because he decreed it was a "privilege," prompting Yankees catcher Russell Martin to burst into the clubhouse in a lather after the game. After referring to Diaz by a certain vulgar epithet, Martin expressed concerns over the incident because Diaz "can hold a grudge with the best of them."

Three weeks ago, Phillies manager Charlie Manuel received a one-game suspension for a heated exchange with umpire Bob Davidson. Surprisingly, Davidson also incurred a one-game suspension for repeated violations of the commissioner's office's standards for "situation handling."

What in the name of Augie Donatelli is going on here?

Ratcheting up the scrutiny

Judging from all the pained expressions, clubhouse rants and online outrage, you might get the impression that umpiring has reached a crisis stage and fallen into complete disrepair. It's similar to the lament about political mudslinging being at an "all-time low," even though negative campaigns have been a staple of American politics since John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson went at it in 1828.

Even Boston manager Bobby Valentine, an advocate of calling balls and strikes by technology to eliminate human error, concedes that complaints about umpires have been "going on for 100 years now." And long before baseball blogs were in vogue, Tim Welke appeared on a Sports Illustrated cover beside the headline: "Kill the Umps! Missed calls and skewed strike zones are marring the postseason."

The run date of the issue: Oct. 19, 1998.

Red Sox manager Bobby Valentine believes Major League Baseball should take the human element out of calling balls and strikes. Matthew J. Lee/Getty Images

Anyone with a season ticket or a subscription to the MLB Extra Innings package will tell you that strike zones can be wildly inconsistent, and on some nights, downright incomprehensible. Bad nights behind the plate are magnified by Pitch FX technology that tightens the noose a fraction of an inch at a time.

Several baseball people interviewed for this story think the quality of umpiring this season isn't appreciably better or worse than in past years. The consensus is that umpires are incredibly good on bang-bang plays at the bases, while trapped balls, assorted fair-or-foul calls and tag plays preceded by a lot of "movement" present bigger challenges.

"We get to look at three different replays before we can tell whether a guy was safe or out," said Dodgers broadcaster Steve Lyons. "The umpire will call him safe, and then you look at the replay and he was safe by a hair. I've seen some bad calls this year. We always do. But most of the time, I think the umpires are amazing."

When umpires do err, judgment is swift, widespread and severe. After Welke botched the Hairston play, multiple outlets treated it as an affront to humanity.

"Veteran umpire makes jaw-droppingly terrible call," blared msn.com.

"This Is The Absolute Worst Call A Baseball Umpire Has Made This Year," proclaimed Business Insider Sports.

"Tim Welke Cracks The Top Ten Worst Umpiring Calls Ever," opined SBNation.

You get the picture. When Milwaukee catcher Jonathan Lucroy's wife receives hate mail for inadvertently dropping a suitcase on her husband's hand and sending him to the disabled list, just imagine the wrath an umpire incurs for preventing a team from winning.

"It's always been kind of a battle," said Dodgers manager Don Mattingly. "But with the quality of replays now, you can tell if an umpire was right or wrong all the time. And the discussion stays on the burner now whenever there's a mistake. It's magnified by seven talk shows and ESPN alone. I'm yelling all the time. The guys in the other dugout are yelling all the time. Everybody is mad all the time. It's a tough job."

Ejections are down