Joe Maddon was ejected yesterday in dramatic, and unconventional!, fashion. Rather than going after the umpire himself (in what must have made Joe West very confused), Maddon pursued Pirates manager Clint Hurdle, leading to Joe West playing an unnatural role as peacemaker, and leading also to this beautiful moment:
Most of the manager ejections we see follow similar scripts, so Maddon’s twist on the genre was charming. But while we appreciate novelty here at The Barking Crow, we also love the classics. So here are some of our favorite elements of managers getting themselves ejected. As it goes with my pet squirrels, I can’t rank these, because they’re all my favorites:
Chest to chest, yelling in the umpire’s face
Managers love to do this. It’s a common thread of many an ejection. Since managers tend to at least have a little paunch, and umpires tend to have full-on bellies, it creates a showdown in which the men’s guts are pushing on either side of the ump’s chest protector, and those three things—paunch, chest protector, belly—are the only things separating the guys from accidentally kissing. Even with the trench between them, plenty of spittle exchanges lips. All in good fun.
Throwing a base
One of the best categories of managerial ejection elements is “creating minor inconveniences for the umpires.” Throwing a base is just such a move. The base only goes ten or twenty feet. It skids a little. Has to feel pretty good for the manager, but I wonder how often it leaves them dissatisfied. Do they want it to go further?
Stomping
This almost always happens, and stomping—in any form—is almost always fun. It’s such a silly-looking thing. Are you trying to hurt the ground? And managers don’t even get to make a lot of noise with their stomps because they’re doing it on hard earth.
Getting tossed while in the dugout, then running out to do the arguing
The arms-wide, mouth-agape sprint from the dugout in which the skipper pantomimes bewilderment is always a beautiful display, but it’s especially enthralling because we—the fans—know that old man must have said something quite foul to the other old man across that expanse of grass and dirt.
Doing it all while bringing someone in from the bullpen
When this happens, it means something is going badly for our friend the manager. He’s pulling the pitcher, who likely has walked too many batters, and after doing that rather calmly he turns his attention to the official. He walks toward the umpire, and what starts as just a conversation turns fiery. If you’re a fan of slow cookers, you love this move.
Kicking dirt all over the plate
In the same category as throwing a base, this minor inconvenience results in the umpire, when everything is over, looking exhausted as he has to bend down and brush off his beloved home plate. It’s also fun because if you’re watching on television, you realize when it happens that there’s a cameraman during ejections whose sole job is to keep an angle right on the plate in case the manager kicks dirt on it.
Starting to walk away, but still chirping, getting tossed while walking away, then running back to re-engage
Just when you thought it was over, the manager again says something that crosses the umpire’s invisible line, and once ejected, the manager cashes in his chips with a tirade three times mightier than the one he unleashed to start the affair. You thought the first one was the main course, but it, my friend, was just an appetizer.
The minor league umpire who goes overboard, does more than one ridiculous thing, then makes the SportsCenter Top Ten
I sometimes wonder if these guys’ tantrums are choreographed ahead of time. You can find a number of them on YouTube, and they basically look like what happens when one—and only one—of your friends gets way too drunk and you’re trying to balance making fun of them with getting them to go to bed.
Throwing the hat
Always a fun one, and very similar to stomping, the ripping off of one’s hat and throwing it to the ground is a delightful display of frustration by the manager species. It, like many of these, is a staple of the dance that goes back generations.
Being physically restrained by a player
This happens rarely, but when it happens it’s a blast. It happened yesterday:
There are a few things that combine to make this fun. There’s the role-reversal, of course, as normally the manager is the one trying to keep the infuriated player from being ejected. There’s the element where, safely secured in his player’s arms, the manager can really let loose without fear of reaching the umpire (or, in yesterday’s case, the opposing dugout) and having to figure out what to do when he gets there. But my favorite part is that a world-class athlete holding back a manager reminds us all how the manager is, at his core, just an angry old man. May he always be so.
