Yunel Escobar Was Ejected For Drawing Home Plate In The Dirt

Yahoo - Baseball has seen its fair share of ejections over the years. Usually, it’s due to a manager or player protesting a call. Sometimes, it’s due to a pitcher intentionally throwing at another player.

On Sunday, a player was ejected for something we’ve never seen before. Los Angeles Angels third baseman Yunel Escobar was thrown out of a contest after drawing a picture in the infield. It was the bottom of the seventh inning, and Baltimore Orioles slugger Chris Davis was at the plate. On the 1-1 pitch, Davis checked his swing. The umpire ruled he didn’t go, and the count moved to 2-1.

Before the next pitch, umpire Tim Timmons signaled to Escobar, who was at short due to an infield shift, and ejected him from the game. At first, no one could figure out what the heck happened. Turns out, after Davis had checked his swing, Escobar started to draw something in the infield dirt at short. Eventually, it was determined that Escobar had drawn an exaggerated home plate on the field in order to help the ump properly see the zone.

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I can’t get the video to embed here because of a combo of our technology sucking and MLB’s media player being the worst, but it’s pretty funny. Chris Davis checked his swing and next thing you know Yunel Escobar is getting the heave ho from 3rd base. But it wasn’t because he argued. He didn’t even call anyone a faggot. Nope, all he did was draw home plate in the dirt and the home plate umpire got all riled up and kicked him out. BOOOOOOOOOOOO. BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO.

Drawing in the dirt is a tradition as old as time itself. Baseball players have been drawing in the dirt since tee ball. So it is very, very hypocritical for major league baseball, a sport that prides itself on history, to kick him out of the game. Besides, we are talking about a guy who didn’t think twice about writing the spanish word for “faggot” on his eyeblack, so you have to cut him some slack when it comes to his dirt drawings. Plus, keep in mind he grew up in Cuba so literally he’s been doing everything in dirt his entire life. Now multiply all of that by the fact umps will stop at nothing to make the game all about themselves, and it’s the perfect ejection storm.