It’s highly unlikely that a man who grew up such a diehard baseball fan that he decided to pursue the unglamorous position of umpiring wouldn’t have followed specific teams during his adolescent years. But when it comes to umpire Brian Walsh, the flaunting of his fandom in a public profile is the problem. Also, crucially not an adolescent at the time. An adult man. Presumably, given the timeline, an adult umpire.

Now, now, now … wearing a Boston Red Sox shirt during the 2013 World Series (or changing your Facebook profile picture to you in a Red Sox shirt during the 2013 World Series), as it’s clear Walsh did, is not nearly as much of a crime as his neglect of the corners of home plate Wednesday night in Houston — until Jazz Chisholm stepped to the plate, that is.

But it’s the principle of the thing. It’s just … a bad thing to still have online! It’s a bad thing for MLBUA not to have noticed. And it’s a pretty big oversight for a crucial game between the Yankees and their biggest non-Bostonian rival in the heart of a pennant race — a rival that already has a significant history of tilting the scales, in fact!

Devin Williams struggled to find the plate in his eighth inning on Wednesday — or maybe he did find it, and Walsh didn’t feel like acknowledging him. It eventually led to a four-run combined meltdown in tandem with Camilo Doval, as well as the ejection of both Williams and Aaron Boone. And the malfeasance was ignited by this man, shown here in a photo he posted to his public social media account root, root, rooting for the Red Sox. You don’t want to take that down, maybe?

Yankees vs. Astros umpire Brian Walsh has Red Sox photos on his personal Facebook page

The only thing making this brazen, too-goofy-to-be-true reality easier to swallow is that the Yankees didn’t enter Walsh’s eighth inning of madness with a lead; they’d already blown a significant advantage. Walsh didn’t signal to the bullpen for Devin Williams in a tie game, though it would’ve made more sense if he had. The Yankees got themselves into 10 different predicaments without the help of Walsh, and every Yankee who touched the ball (or the bullpen phone) between the sixth and eighth innings deserves more blame than Walsh.

But it’s the Chisholm call to end the game. It’s the Chisholm call to end the game that really gets you.

Because, in the eighth, Walsh decided not to give Williams the corners, as his pitches darted directly to their intended spots several different times. He called it tight. He let the ballpark pulsate. He let the fans dictate the outcome. Anything close would be a ball. You have to come over the heart of the plate. My plate. My dirty water plate.

But in the ninth? After the Yankees had miraculously drawn to within a run with two outs, and a full count on Chisholm, potentially representing the tying run? Now, Bryan Abreu is allowed to miss close. He almost got there. He tried. Ballgame. He took the bat out of the Yankees’ hand, and he begged us to check out his public persona for any clues.

The whole thing was remarkably brazen, and while you can’t ban anyone from a Massachusetts zip code or who’s ever yelled, “NOMAR!” from calling a Yankee game, the least you can ask for is that they fairly do the job assigned to them. Walsh didn’t deliver on Wednesday, and opened a suspicious door ajar in the process.