I’ve long said that college baseball deserves more respect, especially this time of year. Folks obsess with March Madness, but I don’t think it holds a candle to June Madness.
Fine. That’s a little hyperbolic, but I do believe this country needs to pay way more attention to college baseball. You want 24/7 electricity? Check out post-Memorial Day college baseball. The Road to Omaha. It’s the best, and it started this weekend around the country with regional tournaments.
On that note, let’s go ahead and head on out to Athens, where Georgia’s Tre Phelps gave the Bulldogs the lead Sunday against Liberty with a mammoth home run, and then promptly got ejected for an … exuberant … celebration while rounding the bases.
Enjoy!
NCAA BASEBALL TOURNAMENT DESCENDS INTO MAYHEM AS PLAYERS, COACHES, PARENTS EJECTED
Goodness gracious. First off … what an absolute nuke from Tre Phelps. That ball still hasn’t landed. And what a moment, too.
Regional final. Trip to the Super Regionals on the line. You’re at home. You’re down a run in the sixth inning. And you just potentially sent your program to the next round of the tournament.
As a baseball player — as an athlete — you dream of those moments. It’s something he’ll talk about for the rest of his life.
Which is why I think this ejection is pure insanity. Just nuts.
What are we doing here? We’re really tossing kids for THAT? You have to be able to read the room as an umpire. I understand the whole “sportsmanship” aspect to this. I do. But look at the situation!
The kid just hit the biggest home run of his life. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a baseball player ejected for excessive celebration. That certainly didn’t seem like the time for it.
And here’s the kicker … some are reporting that Phelps was actually signaling to his family while running down the first base line:
Goodness. Now, I have no clue if that’s who Phelps was motioning to in the beginning of his trot. You could probably piece the two together and make a case, but it’s all subjective at this point.
Georgia manager Wes Johnson pointed this out after the game, for what it’s worth.
“As far as the Tre (Phelps) situation, for the record, Tre’s family was sitting up in the stands,” he said. “Tre was waving at his family. The umpires — whatever, you know I’m not an umpire — they thought he was talking to their dugout.”
Regardless, the ejection was stunning. Truly stunning. Again, I don’t know that I’ve ever seen that before, and I spent two decades playing baseball.
Was it excessive? Absolutely. Obnoxious? Sure. But baseball has a way of policing itself, right? The game is built on the unwritten rules. Did the kid need to be tossed after hitting the go-ahead home run in a regional final? Probably not. Would he have taken a fastball to the back during his next at-bat? I’d imagine so.
Instead, his replacement — Michael O’Shaughnessy — hit a no-doubter in the eighth inning that put the game on ice:
Was that the Baseball Gods giving us their verdict on the situation? Perhaps. They have a way of doing that.
In any event, the Bulldogs are moving on. Tre Phelps will now be suspended for the first game of the Super Regional next weekend.
And it all seems a little silly.