Yeah Im fine with the kayfabe angle. Its more what the current state of the game has become because of the fallibility of the umpire, but at the same time the absolute infallibility of them as well.
I dont think baseball does a good job of being honest about umpires blowing calls, and to fight the perception of being wrong umpires lean _way_ to the other side to the point that if a batter is even suspected of questioning a call they are ejected. Then, sure, I dont see a problem with the arguing because what else can you do. Its a tight rope, and I dont think they've walked it well. It does feed into the lower leagues though, with completely different relationships (volunteer umps and no replay review), but the same antics.
I agree with all of that. Thing is that I think baseball could have fixed all of this by breaking the MLB umpires union. It's not that I'm anti-union - far, far from it - it's that it should be the professional baseball umpires union, and cover minor league officials, too. At that point you could demote the worst of the MLB umpires (we all know who they are) and replace them by promoting people who are better.
Instead of doing the hard right thing, baseball does something easier that will be worse for the game. Faugh.
I dont think baseball does a good job of being honest about umpires blowing calls, and to fight the perception of being wrong umpires lean _way_ to the other side to the point that if a batter is even suspected of questioning a call they are ejected. Then, sure, I dont see a problem with the arguing because what else can you do. Its a tight rope, and I dont think they've walked it well. It does feed into the lower leagues though, with completely different relationships (volunteer umps and no replay review), but the same antics.