Major League Baseball suspended umpire Fieldin Culbreth for two games and fined him an undisclosed amount after Culbreth’s crew allowed the Houston Astros to make an illegal pitching change Thursday night, a rare public reprimand of an umpire.

Culbreth, the crew chief for the game between the Astros and Los Angeles Angels, will serve his two-game suspension at a time to be determined. MLB also issued fines to the other three members of Culbreth’s crew: Brian O’Nora, Bill Welke and Adrian Johnson.

The suspension comes a day after MLB executive vice president Joe Torre issued a statement confirming that umpire Angel Hernandez erred in failing to overturn a call on video review in a Wednesday game between Cleveland and Oakland, costing the Athletics a game-tying home run. Hernandez was not otherwise disciplined.

As MLB readies for expanded video review, expected to land in 2014, Torre’s statement and Friday’s suspension of Culbreth perhaps indicates an expectation of greater accountability from its umpires.

“Umpires are the custodians of the game here,” said MLB executive vice president Joe Torre in a Friday interview on MLB Network. “They’re the people we all look to. Unfortunately they messed it up.

“It certainly isn’t a reflection of Fieldin Culbreth. I’d go to war to him and still would. No excuse; they just kicked it.”

Thursday’s flap unfolded in the seventh inning, when Astros manager Bo Porter inserted left-handed reliever Wesley Wright into the game, and Angels manager Mike Scioscia countered by sending up pinch-hitter Luis Jimenez, a right-handed batter, with the Astros leading 5-3.

Rule 3.05 (b) states a pitcher inserted into the game must face at least one batter, unless unless injury or illness prevents him from doing so.

Porter lifted Wright before he threw a pitch, calling on right-hander Hector Ambriz.

Scioscia immediately and vociferously argued, and Culbreth and his crew huddled at least three times on the field in an attempt to get the call correct. The Angels played the game under protest but rallied for a 6-5 victory.

Porter, in his first year as a major league manager, later said it was his belief that the rule had been amended to allow a pitching change to occur without a pitcher facing a batter. MLB’s ruling certainly debunked that theory.

Thursday night, Porter called Culbreth and apologized, and on Friday told reporters he felt bad that the umpires had to bear the brunt of his mistake.

Culbreth is in his first year as a crew chief, and has worked two World Series. He made his MLB umpiring debut in 1993.

“Me personally, I want to apologize to the whole crew,” Porter said Friday in Houston. “I stand corrected. Mike Scioscia was right. I feel bad I put (the umpires) in that position.

“It’s an honest mistake, but it’s obviously a mistake that we look at in (MLB) and we don’t want to have mistakes like that.”

Rule 3.05 (b) states: “If the pitcher is replaced, the substitute pitcher shall pitch to the batter then at bat, or any substitute batter, until such batter is put out or reaches first base, or until the offensive team is put out, unless the substitute pitcher sustains injury or illness which, in the umpire-in-chief’s judgment, incapacitates him for further play as a pitcher.”

MLB’s discipline of its umpires is almost always a private matter, as fines issued to umps are rarely acknowledged.

But Culbreth’s suspension is not unprecedented.

In 2007, umpire Mike Winters was suspended on Sept. 27 for the remainder of the season – roughly three games – for his conduct during an argument with then-San Diego Padres outfielder Milton Bradley. The Padres said Winters used profanity, and Bradley tore his ACL when manager Bud Black grabbed him to keep the confrontation from escalating.

In 2012, umpire Bob Davidson was suspended for one game for what MLB termed “repeated violations” in handling situations, culminating in an incident involving Philadelphia Phillies manager Charlie Manuel.

Torre termed the error by Culbreth and crew as “more of a mental mistake.” Culbreth will work behind home plate for Friday’s Tampa Bay Rays-San Diego Padres game in St. Petersburg, Fla.

“I talked to Fieldin a couple times today,” Torre said Friday, “and can’t tell you how bad he feels.”

PHOTOS: Getting the boot in baseball

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Another day brought another embarrassing moment for major league umpires.

At least this time, they were joined by a manager who could be equally red-faced.

One day after Angel Hernandez cost the Oakland Athletics a game-tying home run by muffing a video review, Fieldin Culbreth’s crew in Houston failed to catch a rookie mistake by Astros manager Bo Porter that caused Thursday night’s game to be played under protest.

Unlike the A’s, the Los Angeles Angels managed to come back and defeat the Astros, so manager Mike Scioscia’s protest is rendered moot.

But that doesn’t erase the debacle that unfolded in the top of the seventh inning Thursday at Minute Maid Park.

With the Astros leading 5-3, Porter inserted lefty reliever Wesley Wright into the game, and Scioscia countered by sending up pinch-hitter Luis Jimenez, a right-handed batter.

It’s the sort of move-counter move that’s unfolded in the game for decades, one governed by rule 3.05(b), which states that a pitcher placed into the game must face one batter, unless injury or illness prevents him from doing so.

Porter, believing the rule had been amended, lifted Wright for right-hander Hector Ambriz.

Whoops.

Scioscia burst from the dugout with about the same speed as George Brett when his pine-tar home run was nullified and immedately protested. Three umpire huddles then ensued.

And Ambriz was allowed to pitch to Jimenez.

Porter’s take: “Technically, Wesley came in to pitch the batter that was scheduled to hit, but he pinch-hit for the batter that was scheduled to hit — which, from my understanding of the rule, you can bring in another pitcher to face the pinch-hitter.”

That would be news to hundreds of managers who have operated under a different assumption for decades. And there’s nothing in rule 3.05(b) to suggest such an interpretation is possible. And no indication that the rule, as Porter suggested, has been recently amended.

“I think the rule’s pretty clear,” Scioscia said afterward, his team’ comeback victory negating his need to posture.

Meanwhile, crew chief Culbreth ducked any notion of ump fallibility, noting that “All matters concerning protest go through the league office.”

Friday, Major League Baseball issued a statement confirming that the rule regarding pitching changes “was not applied correctly” and, regarding possible discipline for the umpiring crew, the situation was “being reviewed.”

That marks the second day MLB had to weigh in on an umpiring gaffe; Thursday, MLB vice president Joe Torre released a statement confirming the umps blew the video review in Cleveland.

The always delicate relationship among umps and the game’s central office only figures to get more tenuous with every misstep, along with the looming specter of expanded replay in the 2014 season.

But expanded replay won’t eliminate acts of incompetence, nor will it force those who commit them to display a level of accountability beyond the bobs and weaves of Hernandez and Culbreth on consecutive nights.

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Chicago Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts threatened to move the club out of Wrigley Field if the team’s plans for a larger scoreboard and additional signage is not approved.

Speaking at an event at the City Club of Chicago that included members of a rooftop residences’ group, Ricketts told the assembled media and public that if the Cubs “cannot get approval for this plan and our signage plans are blocked we will then consider moving out of Wrigley Field.”

The Cubs are seeking approval for a 6,000-square foot video board atop the left-field wall and four new signs ringing the outfield. Ricketts called the Cubs’ current video board “mid-size” and cited the potential for tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

Speaking at the event, Cubs president of business operations Crane Kenney said the changes would be necessary for the Cubs – long one of baseball’s leaders in revenue – to remain competitive.

“We have to generate new revenue,” he said. “We have to catch up to our large-market competitors on ballpark revenues, so this project has to work from a financial perspective as well.”

Following his public remarks, Ricketts toned them down a bit in a follow-up session with reporters, saying that the club “wants to win at Wrigley Field.”

Indeed, the Wrigley Field experience is an essential part of the Cubs brand, which would take a hit should the club move from the fabled park with its ivy-covered walls at the corner of Addison and Clark streets.

Owners of buildings with rooftop views of the ballpark, who charge fans for access to watch Cubs games, worry such a board would block their sight lines and have vowed legal action if that happens. Ricketts says studies indicate the views would be blocked only minimally, if at all.

Ricketts said the team will file its proposal with the city Wednesday.

Contributing: wire reports

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David Price finally won his first game of the season, but beating the Chicago White Sox wasn’t his biggest battle Sunday.

The Tampa Bay Rays left-hander engaged in a war of wards with home-plate umpire Tom Hallion during his club’s 8-3 victory, a conflict that spilled into postgame comments and, ultimately, social media.

Price was rebuked by Hallion for his reaction to a call in the seventh inning. They also exchanged words as Price came off the field following that inning, his last one of the game.

Moments later, Rays starter Jeremy Hellickson was ejected for yelling at Hallion.

After the game, the details of the incident were a disputed topic.

Price told reporters that Hallion yelled at him to “throw the (bleeping) ball over the plate,” which is what upset Rays players and led to the ejection of Hellickson.

“If my own dad doesn’t speak to me that way,” Price said, according to Marc Topkin of the Tampa Bay Times, “some frickin’ umpire’s not going to speak to me that way.”

Hallion took great exception with that version of events.

“I’ll come right out bluntly and say he’s a liar,” Hallion told a pool reporter after the game. “I said, ‘Just throw the ball.’ That’s all I said to him.”

“(Hellickson) was told to knock it off, him and (starter Matt Moore) were at the dugout rail and I told them to knock it off, and he thought it was OK for him to have his final comment, at which time he was ejected.”

Of course, in the era of social media, returning fire is just a tweet away, and Price and the Rays were enraged when they caught wind of Hallion’s explanation.

Price unleashed a stream of tweets ripping Hallion for his reaction. An abridged version:

Someone give me the definition of a coward please. Someone please give me the definition of accountability…1. I am not a liar 2. I would not make that stuff up 3. My own dad doesn’t speak to me that way 4. Again I am not a liar #accountability..Think our entire dugout would ERUPT cause an ump told me to throw the ball over the plate? No, I’m sorry that wouldnt happen And then to be called a LIAR about the entire thing?? No chance…#accountability

Moore also jumped into the fray, tweeting that it was “unbelievable someone would mis remember so quickly. Stay in your lane. Nobody cares what you have to say. #tom.”

Price’s tweets likely ran afoul of baseball’s social-media policy, which stipulates players cannot criticize or question the integrity of umpires via social media. He and his teammates, however, seemed to think Hallion’s profane command was audible for several observers.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has no problem with David Ortiz’s Fenway Park expletive when the Red Sox returned to action after the Boston Marathon bombing saga.

In fact, he endorses it.

Speaking to the Associated Press Sports Editors’ meeting in New York on Thursday, Selig echoed the sentiments of FCC chairman Julius Genachowski that Ortiz’s briefly blue speech — “This is our (expletive) town,” he said — was pitch perfect.

“It was really emotional for me,” Selig said of the Fenway Park ceremony to honor the bombing victims, just hours after the capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnev. “I actually cried through the whole ceremony. I’m not afraid to tell you that. On one hand it was so uplifting, so sad in another way.

“I agree with the FCC. I thought David Ortiz’s choice of words was outstanding given what he was trying to say. I mean that sincerely.”

Later that day, Neil Diamond arrived at Fenway Park to perform Sweet Caroline during the bottom of the eighth inning, capping a week in which his song, a Fenway standard for 15 years, was played throughout major league parks in a show of support for Boston.

“I thought baseball did what it could,” Selig said, “to react in a good way.”

Contributing: Mary Byrne in New York

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The New York Yankees will be without Derek Jeter until after the All-Star break after he suffered a small crack near the area where his left ankle was surgically repaired.

General manager Brian Cashman told reporters on Thursday that a CT scan revealed the crack, the latest injury setback for a Yankees team that has gone without Jeter, outfielder Curtis Granderson, first baseman Mark Teixeira and third baseman Alex Rodriguez the entire season.

But Jeter’s setback is particularly troubling, given that he was hoping to be ready for opening day; the timetable was then revised for a return around May 1.

Given those expectations, the Yankees did not make personnel moves designed for a long-term absence. Yankees shortstops — primarily Eduardo Nunez — are batting .233 this season, and their on-base plus slugging percentage of .606 ranks 23rd in the major leagues.

“This,” Cashman said, “is obviously a setback.”

Jeter fractured the ankle in Game 1 of the American League Championship Series, had surgery – which included inserting a metal plate and screws – latre in October and was running on a treadmill in mid-February as the Yankees opened spring training camp. He played in an exhibition game by March 9, but his recovery slowed as spring training waned, and he stayed behind in Tampa as the Yankees began the season.

The crack apparently occurred during Jeter’s workout Wednesday, prompting him to visit his surgeon, Robert Anderson, in Charlotte. Jeter is not expected to need further surgery, Cashman said.

Despite their myriad injuries, the Yankees are 8-5 with a mix-and-match lineup that has included several players claimed off the scrap heap toward the end of spring training.

They do expect Granderson and, most likely, Teixeira back next month, while Rodriguez recently began running on a treadmill.

But Jeter, who turns 39 on June 26, is the player hardest to replace. And now he may be gone until August.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Jonathan Papelbon, the former Boston Red Sox closer, once resided in an apartment directly above the site of one of the explosions at Monday’s Boston Marathon, and he called watching the events from afar “surreal.”

In a follow-up interview Tuesday with CSN Philadelphia, Papelbon elaborated on that and also spoke of other fears in this era, such as walking through crowds at a stadium. That included Papelbon bringing into play a seemingly separate issue, that of President Obama’s efforts on gun control after the elementary school killings in Newtown, Conn.

Said Papelbon:

“We walked through the crowd here on opening day and in Boston, we came down through the bleachers one opening day. I don’t feel comfortable doing that.

“Today’s day and age, has gotten so crazy. Shoot man, Obama wants to take our guns from us and everything. You got all this stuff going on, it’s just a little bit insane for me, man. I’m not sure how to take it.”

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

The New York Yankees evoked Neil Diamond to pay tribute to the victims of Monday’s explosions at the Boston Marathon.

The club played Sweet Caroline at the end of the third inning during Tuesday night’s 4-2 win over the Arizona Diamondbacks, co-opting the Fenway Park singalong for just one night. The tune followed a moment of silence for the victims of the two blasts.

Diamond’s 1969 hit has been a staple at Boston Red Sox home games for at least 15 years, played during the bottom of the eighth inning as fans of the Olde Towne Team join in on the chorus — all the more raucously if the Sox are leading.

Tuesday night, the iconic “Da-DAH-dah-dah!” was heard in the Bronx, and throughout baseball as many other clubs followed suit after the Yankees announced their tribute. And outside Yankee Stadium, the club unfurled a “United We Stand” banner with the logos of the two clubs.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

The Tampa Bay Rays and Boston Red Sox were both at Fenway Park, preparing for their respective trips to Logan Airport, when an explosion occurred in Copley Square near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

Rays outfielder Sam Fuld tweeted that the team was on the bus at the time of the explosion, and Tampa Bay Times reporter Marc Topkin said the club was on the way to the airport for its flight to Baltimore, where the Rays begin a series with the Orioles on Tuesday.

A Red Sox player confirmed to USA TODAY Sports that the team was still inside the stadium at the time of the explosion. The Red Sox were scheduled to fly out to Cleveland on Monday.

The teams played the traditional Patriots’ Day morning game, which started at 11 a.m. in conjunction with the marathon. The game, won by the Red Sox, concluded around 2:10 p.m., some 40 minutes before the estimated time of explosion.

The Rays confirmed their flight made it out of Logan Airport before the Federal Aviation Administration halted flights in and out of the airport. And a reporter for NESN, the Red Sox’s regional network, confirmed the team landed in Cleveland on Monday night.

Contributing: Bob Nightengale

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New York Yankees slugger Alex Rodriguez purchased potentially incriminating documents from a person connected to a South Florida-based anti-aging clinic to keep them out of the hands of Major League Baseball investigators, the New York Times reported Friday.

Citing two people briefed on the matter, the Times reported that a representative of Rodriguez purchased documents from a former representative of Biogenesis, the since-closed Miami clinic that reportedly supplied performance-enhancing drugs to two-dozen major leaguers. Rodriguez’s intent was to destroy the documents.

Terry Fahn, a spokesman for Rodriguez, told USA TODAY Sports that Rodriguez “flatly denied the allegation,” but refused further comment.

The Miami New Times first reported in January that logs obtained from Biogenesis appeared to link several star players, including Rodriguez, Toronto Blue Jays outfielder Melky Cabrera and Texas Rangers outfielder Nelson Cruz, to performance-enhancing drugs.

MLB officials Rob Manfred and Patrick Courtney met with New Times editors in February in an effort to obtain the documents but were rebuffed. MLB investigators have since attempted to purchase the documents themselves, the New York Times reported Thursday evening. MLB has not hid its determination to glean information and, if necessary, suspend players linked to performance-enhancing drugs via Biogenesis.

Its department of investigations is scheduled to interview all the players potentially linked to Biogenesis. It’s thought they have not yet formally interviewed Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, 37, is recovering from hip surgery and iw not expected to play this season until at least July. He has five years and $114 million remaining on his $275 million contract with the Yankees.

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