Yankees Manager Aaron Boone may have thought the bizarre penalty he was hit with Monday came “out of left field,” but in fact, it came from just behind home plate.
Boone had a short disagreement with home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt only minutes into the game as Oakland A’s right fielder Tyler Nevin stepped up to the plate to become the second player to bat in the game, Yahoo Sports reported.
Wendelstedt appeared to warn Boone that he would get ejected if he kept mouthing off. At that point, Boone seemed to acquiesce and just settled back as he stood in the dugout.
But that is when things went off the rails.
Wendelstedt caught an earful despite his warnings to Boone, and he erupted, with a controversial call of throwing Boone out of the game.
But video of the incident clearly showed that Boone hadn’t said a word and was just standing there when Wendelstedt made his ruling.
Boone was incredulous. He ran out to the plate and protested, telling the ump that he didn’t say a word and pointed out a fan in a blue shirt as the culprit.
Hunter is a joke of an umpire pic.twitter.com/W2fI8GYZTk
— Dillard Barnhart (@BarnHasSpoken2) April 22, 2024
Should this umpire be disciplined by Major League Baseball?
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Boone later said that the whole incident was embarrassing for the officiating.
“It’s embarrassing,” Boone said of his ejection. “It really is a bad — it’s embarrassing. … Obviously, it was not right.”
“It was not right.”
– Aaron Boone on his ejection pic.twitter.com/PV732hHxfB
— YES Network (@YESNetwork) April 22, 2024
Despite the video evidence and Boone’s protestations, though, Wendelstedt justified his ruling to toss Boone from the game.
In fact, the ump insisted that it was one of Boone’s players who made the comment, and because Boone is the man ultimately responsible for the team, it was Boone who got tossed.
“In my opinion, the cheap shot came toward the far end [of the dugout],” Wendelstedt said, according to The Athletic’s Chris Kirschner. “So instead of me being aggressive and walking down to the far end and trying to figure out who might have said it, I don’t want to eject a ballplayer. We need to keep them in the game. That’s what the fans pay to see. Aaron Boone runs the Yankees. He got ejected.”
Indeed, Wendelstedt claimed that he has “never ejected a player or manager for something a fan has said,” and he maintained he didn’t do so on Monday.
“I heard something from the far end of the dugout, had nothing to do with his area, but he’s the manager of the Yankees. So he’s the one that had to go,” he insisted.
Here’s what Hunter Wendelstedt said about Aaron Boone’s ejection. pic.twitter.com/J4zi3zlK5T
— Chris Kirschner (@ChrisKirschner) April 22, 2024
Unfortunately for Boone, there will be no retraction of the ump’s ruling, and the ejection will go into the history books — justified or not.
