Aaron Boone, manager of the Yankees, thrown out of game following altercation with fan towards umpire at home plate

New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone was ejected from his team’s game against the Oakland Athletics on Monday for doing nothing. Absolutely nothing.

This isn’t a “gotcha” scenario, or a bait-and-switch. Boone did nothing to get ejected by home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt besides standing in the dugout. Unfortunately, he was standing directly underneath a mouthy fan who may have sounded an awful lot like Boone.

The whole incident started during just the second at-bat of the game. With right fielder Tyler Nevin batting, Boone had been jawing at Wendelstedt, which Wendelstedt wasn’t having. He warned Boone that he’d be ejected if he said anything else. Then, barely 10 seconds later, Wendelstedt ejected Boone, who went totally nuclear.

It was obvious from the video Boone hadn’t said anything, so why did Wendelstedt eject him? A slo-mo replay revealed that a fan sitting above the Yankees dugout yelled something at Wendelstedt, who apparently thought it was Boone.

Asked about the ejection after the Yankees’ 2–0 loss to the A’s, Boone said, “It’s embarrassing.” He added that he could reach out to MLB about the call.

When an all-timer of an ejection happens, you know it, and this qualified. There was drama. There was rage. There was the traditional avoidance of blame on the part of the umpire. It’s a classic example of the manager vs. umpire dynamic, in which the umpire exercises his infallible and unquestionable power whenever and wherever he wants with absolutely zero accountability or consequences of any kind, and the manager has no choice but to take it.