New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone was ejected from his team’s game against the Oakland Athletics on Monday for inaction. there is nothing.
This is not a “gotcha” scenario or a bait-and-switch. Boone did nothing and just stood in the dugout despite being ejected by home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt. Unfortunately for him, he was standing directly below a nagging fan who may have looked an awful lot like Boone.
The whole incident started during the second at-bat of the game. When right fielder Tyler Nevin came to the plate, Boone was attacking Wendelstedt, but Wendelstedt was having none of it. He warned Boone that if he said anything else, he would be ejected.
Just 10 seconds later, Wendelstedt ejected Boone, leaving him fully nuclear-armed.
“It doesn’t matter who said it. You’re gone!”
That usually doesn’t happen, but at least this Aaron Boone exit created a nice hot mic situation. pic.twitter.com/EX2xUsjtKA
— Talkin Yanks (@TalkinYanks) April 22, 2024
It was clear from the video that Boone didn’t say anything, so why did Wendelstedt eject him? A slow-motion replay revealed that a fan sitting atop the Yankees’ dugout was yelling something at Wendelstedt, who apparently thought it was a boom.
Perhaps Wendelstedt knew it wasn’t Boone and didn’t care. When Boone insisted he hadn’t said anything, Wendelstedt responded, “I don’t care who said it. You’re gone!”
When asked about his ejection after the Yankees’ 2-0 loss to the Athletics, Boone said he was embarrassed and added that he may contact MLB about the call-up.
Boone called Wendelstedt’s ejection “embarrassing.” “It’s really bad. It’s embarrassing. … Obviously, it wasn’t right.”
Wendelstedt also provided an account of what happened after the game, claiming he heard someone complain in the Yankees’ dugout after the warning and claiming that Boone was “responsible for everything that happened in the dugout.” He claimed that he decided to eject Boone because of this.
“In my opinion, the cheap shot came towards the far end. [of the dugout]According to Chris Kirshner of The Athletic, Wendelstedt said: “So instead of me being aggressive and walking to the edge and trying to find out who said it, I don’t want to send players off. We need to keep them in the game. The fans… That’s what you’re paying to see. Aaron Boone, who runs the Yankees, was ejected.
“Apparently what he said was that there were fans directly above the dugout. This is not my first ejection. Throughout my career, I have ejected players and managers for fan comments. …I heard something from the other side of the dugout, and it’s not his area, but he’s the manager of the Yankees. So he was the one who had to go.”
If the greatest thing ever to happen is an ejection, I’ll understand, but this qualifies. There was drama. There was anger. Referees have traditionally tended to avoid responsibility. This is a classic example of manager vs. referee power dynamics, where referees exercise unquestioned power anytime, anywhere, with little responsibility or consequence, and managers have no choice but to accept it. .
Wendelstedt is a second-generation umpire who has been on the field since 1998. He’s not as famous as his CB Buckner or Angel Hernandez, but knowing the referee’s name off the top of his head is usually not a good thing. Things; fans know them because they’re memorably bad at their jobs. Wendelstedt could have found himself in the same tense atmosphere as Buckner and Hernandez on Monday. Because no one will forget him after that play.
