No. 13 University of Michigan toppled No. 2 Vanderbilt in a stirring rematch of the 2019 College World Series Finals thanks to a ninth-inning home run from senior first baseman Matt Schmidt. Wolverines designated hitter Jimmy Obertop wasn’t around to watch the final out, however.
College baseball only needed 1 day to give us the worst ejection of 2020
Some very bad umpiring marred the ninth inning of Michigan’s game against Vanderbilt
That’s because home plate umpire Ramon Armendariz had ejected him immediately following Schmidt’s dinger because of, well, this:
Obertop took a called strike he didn’t agree with, touched the dirt behind home plate vaguely where the pitch may have been, and was promptly tossed for his ... insolence? Slight dragging of the bat? Cautious restraint late in a close game between two of the NCAA’s top teams?
MLB Network replays dove into the matter because, as expected, no one was quite sure what Obertop did to get chucked — not even Vandy catcher CJ Rodriguez, who appears fairly confused by the whole matter. Unless the freshman is a ventriloquist, he didn’t say a word to Armendariz. But he may have committed the gravest sin of all (to baseball purists and literally no one else): visibly disagreeing with the umpire.
But this wasn’t Ichiro showing up an ump by correctly drawing the trajectory of a poorly-called strike three in the dirt. This was a simple tap that may not have been anything more than a freshman batter resetting in the middle of a tense situation in the first meaningful game of his college career.
That meant he couldn’t sit in the dugout with his teammates as Michigan pulled off two great defensive plays in the bottom of the ninth, then gave up a drag-bunt hit and a pair of hits to load the bases in their season opener (college baseball is wild). Closer Isaiah Page induced a game-ending flyout in a tense situation, but Obertop couldn’t celebrate Friday’s revenge as his Wolverines evened their 2019-20 series with the Commodores at two games apiece. That had to wait until the locker room, all because of a tiny flick of the bat.
Being an umpire is a difficult and utterly thankless job. Calling balls and strikes would be hard enough without the knowledge that you’re the convenient scapegoat for everything that goes wrong in a game. The in-game life of an umpire must be taxing and unpleasant,
That said, it’s pretty hard to sympathize when they start pulling stuff like this.
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