Few arenas in professional sports will draw a brighter spotlight than Yankee Stadium. In the doldrums of the terrible CBS-owned years, even then, the ballyard at the corner of 161st St. and River Ave. drew attention to itself, whether the Pope was there, or not.
You had better be at your best there, player, broadcaster, or umpire.
Evidently, Hunter Wendelstedt didn’t get the memo. I refer to Harry Hunter Wendelstedt III, son of Harry Jr., an arbiter in the majors from 1966 to 1998. Harry III had a really bad day Monday.
Yankee manager Aaron Boone has been ejected from big league games 35 times, so his resume speaks loudly. A tepid Monday afternoon crowd had barely gathered when Oakland’s Esteury Ruiz was plunked on the foot by a pitch from New York’s Carlos Rodon. Ruiz waved at the pitch, and Boone looked to the home plate ump for clarity—was the batter hit, or was the pitch a swinging strike?
The ump rightly gave Ruiz first base, and quickly told Boone he expected no further comments. A hot mic caught Wendelstedt: “….you got anything else to say, you’re gone, okay?”
In another 20 seconds Boone was gone, tossed by Wendelstedt for… nothing.
Boone hadn’t spoken. A fan, identified by YES network cameras in the field boxes behind the dugout said something, but not the Yankee manager. Boone pled his case, also caught on TV until the language got spicy and was shut down, but Boone was clear—he hadn’t spoken. At that point, things tipped over, badly. Wendelstedt, still fully available to television viewers said, “I don’t care who said it! You’re gone.”
There are a significant number of games I can point to where I’d like to think that, as a fan, I could get an opposing coach or manager removed from the contest, but, that doesn’t happen. Until Monday.
I don’t care?
After the game, Boone referred to the event as “embarrassing,” which it was. Wendelstedt tried to defend himself, saying, “Aaron Boone is the manager of the New York Yankees, and is responsible for everything that happens in that dugout.” That’s right, he is. But he’s not responsible for the behavior of the 30,366 in attendance.
Game officials have a tough job. They’re often abused verbally by fans. But if Wendelstedt can’t tell the difference between the dugout and the lower deck, and he can’t get past the first five pitches of an April Monday matinee against the troubled Athletics, what are we to expect in, say, the Divisional Round?
When a manager’s ejected, he pays a fine, usually covered by his club, but the damage to the reputation lingers. Boone deserves the name he has gained, defending his players vocally as “savages in the box” in a famous video clip. But what of the home plate umpire? I wrote to Matt McKendry, the Vice President of Umpire Operations at MLB. I don’t expect to hear back. What’s worse is that Hunter Wendelstedt likely won’t hear anything, either.