Not sure how this escaped my feeds Sunday, but Georgia infielder Tre Phelps was ejected for excessive celebration after hitting a go-ahead home run against Liberty in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Umpires insisted that Phelps was taunting the Liberty dugout, using that as jusytification for the ejection. It was later discovered Phelps' parents and family were sitting above the Liberty dugout and Phelps said he was just celebrating with them.
Georgia went on to win the game and advance to the Super Regionals, but the ejection comes with a one-game suspension, so Phelps will not be available for Game 1 of that series.
In the postgame press conference, Liberty manager Bradley LeCroy was asked about the incident. He said "[Phelps] did enough to get ejected, he made remarks to our dugout." When asked what Phelps said, LeCroy answered, " ... 3,633 people yelling at the top of their lungs, I'm not sure, but it wasn't good." When pressed on what Phelps said that made LeCroy so made, he simply replied, "I couldn't hear it."
My take: We're so used to over-the-top MLB cellys that this is very benign in comparison. NCAA Baseball Rule 5-17 is, as one would expect, subjective in interpretation on what's excessive, beyond the use of props and things done with the bat. It seems the umpire made an assumption, since no one heard what was actually said toward the Liberty dugout.
You make the call. Who was more over the top: Phelps or the ump?
THE ASYLUM
Ejected over homer celly
Not sure how this escaped my feeds Sunday, but Georgia infielder Tre Phelps was ejected for excessive celebration after hitting a go-ahead home run against Liberty in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Umpires insisted that Phelps was taunting the Liberty dugout, using that as jusytification for the ejection. It was later discovered Phelps' parents and family were sitting above the Liberty dugout and Phelps said he was just celebrating with them.
Georgia went on to win the game and advance to the Super Regionals, but the ejection comes with a one-game suspension, so Phelps will not be available for Game 1 of that series.
In the postgame press conference, Liberty manager Bradley LeCroy was asked about the incident. He said "[Phelps] did enough to get ejected, he made remarks to our dugout." When asked what Phelps said, LeCroy answered, " ... 3,633 people yelling at the top of their lungs, I'm not sure, but it wasn't good." When pressed on what Phelps said that made LeCroy so made, he simply replied, "I couldn't hear it."
My take: We're so used to over-the-top MLB cellys that this is very benign in comparison. NCAA Baseball Rule 5-17 is, as one would expect, subjective in interpretation on what's excessive, beyond the use of props and things done with the bat. It seems the umpire made an assumption, since no one heard what was actually said toward the Liberty dugout.
You make the call. Who was more over the top: Phelps or the ump?
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