To this point in the Major League Baseball season, there have been more than 100 ejections, yet a minor league manager's ejection stands out among them all.
Over the weekend, the Western Michigan Whitecaps — the Detroit Tigers' High-A affiliate — and the Lake County Captains — the Cleveland Guardians High-A affiliate — squared off in a six-game series. In Game 3, both managers — Brayan Peña for the Whitecaps and Omir Santos of the Captains — were ejected from the game.
In baseball, ejections often happen as tensions flare and managers argue calls to defend their team.
Well, Peña made his exit in a fashion unlike anything we've ever seen.
In the top of the ninth inning, the Whitecaps were up 4-3. But a strike was called on one of their batters, and Peña vehemently disagreed with it to the point where he was almost immediately ejected. As you can hear in the video below, even the play-by-play announcers had questions about the called strike.
Missed this earlier. Both managers in Lake County were ejected tonight. Brayan Peña gave the ump a couple of earfuls and then hopped the fence to join the fans. @ThatDanHasty calls this chapter of a particularly wild game. pic.twitter.com/zd7yDDVzaf
— Tigers ML Report (@tigersMLreport) June 17, 2023
Peña gave the home plate umpire an earful for quite some time and even pushed away a fellow coach while delivering what were undoubtedly, uh, words of encouragement to the home plate umpire. Peña initially walked away but returned because the exit for this field is in different location, in the right field corner. So, on his way back, Peña let the umpire have it again.
As he walks toward the right field exit, he turns to the stands, hops the barrier, walks up the stairs and heads to the concourse. Right past all the fans in attendance.
You can't tell us that's not hysterical.
Western Michigan went on to lose this game 9-8 in 10 innings after Peña — the manager for the team for three years and a former Tigers catcher — was ejected.
The Whitecaps are 32-30 this year after a 72-59 showing in 2022.
