2003 Major League Baseball

The 2003 Major League Baseball season was the fourth season in which the two major leagues, the National League and the American League, were consolidated into a single entity under the authority of the Commissioner, Bud Selig.

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Events

In 2003, Major League Baseball, which owned the Montreal Expos forced them to play a number of games away from home, in Hiram Bithorn Stadium in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In spite of that marked disadvantage, the Expos were in the thick of the wild card race until mid-September, until a last series of "home games" in Puerto Rico and the refusal by MLB to allow them to call up extra players in September proved too much to overcome. The Florida Marlins ended up winning the wild card spot, and took that all the way to an unlikely World Series title over the New York Yankees.

The Bereavement list was created before the season, allowing teams the opportunity to grant a player a short leave and replacing him on the active roster in case of an unfortunate event affecting close family members. That year, MLB also introduced QuesTec, an automated system to judge balls and strikes; this was done as a means to rate umpires consistency in this domain against an objective standard.

Umpires

• Dave Aschwege
• Lance Barksdale
• Ted Barrett
• Wally Bell
• Joe Brinkman
• CB Bucknor
• Mark Carlson
• Gary Cederstrom
• Eric Cooper
• Derryl Cousins
• Terry Craft
• Jerry Crawford
• Fieldin Culbreth
• Phil Cuzzi
• Kerwin Danley
• Gary Darling
• Gerry Davis
• Dana DeMuth
• Laz Diaz
• Mike DiMuro
• Adam Dowdy
• Rob Drake
• Bruce Dreckman
• Doug Eddings
• Paul Emmel
• Mike Everitt
• Mike Fichter
• Andy Fletcher
• Marty Foster
• Bruce Froemming
• Greg Gibson
• Brian Gorman
• Chris Guccione
• Angel Hernandez
• Scott Higgins
• John Hirschbeck
• Mark Hirschbeck
• Bill Hohn
• Sam Holbrook
• Matt Hollowell
• James Hoye
• Marvin Hudson
• Dan Iassogna
• Jim Joyce
• Kevin Kelley
• Jeff Kellogg
• Justin Klemm
• Brian Knight
• Ron Kulpa
• Jerry Layne
• Alfonso Marquez
• Randy Marsh
• Tim McClelland
• Jerry Meals
• Chuck Meriwether
• Bill Miller
• Ed Montague
• Paul Nauert
• Jeff Nelson
• Scott Nelson
• Brian O'Nora
• Larry Poncino
• Tony Randazzo
• Ed Rapuano
• Rick Reed
• Mike Reilly
• Charlie Reliford
• Jim Reynolds
• Steve Rippley
• Brian Runge
• Jack Samuels
• Paul Schrieber
• Dale Scott
• Darren Spagnardi
• Tim Timmons
• Tim Tschida
• Larry Vanover
• Mark Wegner
• Bill Welke
• Tim Welke
• Hunter Wendelstedt
• Joe West
• Mike Winters
• Jim Wolf
• Larry Young

See also

• 2003 American League
• 2003 National League
• 2003 Postseason

Further Reading

• Will Leitch: "From Boone's heroics to Bartman: 2003 was wild: The baseball world has changed dramatically since that year", mlb.com, March 30, 2020.

2003 MLB season by team