Baseball Player Throws Epic Tantrum, Brings Out Trash Can on Field To Insult Ump
What’s better than insulting someone by calling them garbage?
How about calling them garbage with a handy visual aid?
In a game between the Chicago Dogs (who, in a tragic missed opportunity, do not have a sport pepper on their cap) and Fargo-Moorhead, RedHawks outfielder Brennan Metzger looked at a called third strike.
Metzger disagreed with umpire Mike Jarboe, and by disagreed we mainly mean “threw a colossal temper tantrum that would make a 4-year-old hang his head in shame.”
Metzger started with the standard yelling, getting heated enough that his manager Michael Schlacht ran out to get between his player and the umpire, hoping to de-escalate the situation.
Whatever it was Metzger said, it got under Jarboe’s skin, and the ump then ejected the player from the ballgame.
This was, in cartoon-moment parlance, the point where the burning trail of gunpowder at last reached the keg for the earth-shattering kaboom.
Metzger got right back in Jarboe’s face and unleashed an obscenity-laced tirade while the manager again calmly continued to reposition himself between player and ump in a futile attempt at diplomacy.
It was at this point when things went legitimately bonkers.
Metzger went back to the dugout, retrieved a half-full trash bin, hauled it out onto the field, planted it behind home plate and resumed his rant at the umpire.
“That’s your home,” he said. “Go home.”
Someone's got a case of the Mondays… #SCNotTop10 @SportsCenter pic.twitter.com/FIhOJyXQbM
— Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks (@FMRedHawks) August 7, 2018
The crowd just ate it up. Half the fun of minor league ball is enjoying the fun of a night out at the ballpark for the joy of spending a summer night outside, and if a player does something utterly goofy in the process, that’s just giving the paying customers their money’s worth.
The announcer on the broadcast referred to the incident as “a unique way to tell an umpire what he thought of the pitch selection and the call.”
Schlacht continued to — far more calmly, it should be noted — argue with the umpire while a clubhouse staffer retrieved the trash barrel from its location behind the plate.
Meanwhile, in the chaos, the runner for Fargo-Moorhead took third, leaving a favorable position for the team of having a guy 90 feet from the plate with just one out in a tie ballgame.
And indeed, the runner, Tim Colwell, scored on the next at-bat.
If you’re the sort of person who loves when the weird gets weirder, consider this: The run scored when Colwell took home plate after a dropped third strike, as Devin Ahart ended up on first base.
The RedHawks defeated the Dogs 4-3.
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