O's Boston brawl, odd ejection?
 

Just interested in how the PU handled this. The best video to see what the umpire did is side angle a fan posted on YouTube since the game telecasts from both Balt and Bos were straight on.

one out, R3, pitch comes after bench-clearing that resulted in warnings but no ejections. Ortiz pops up, PU appears to eject pitcher Gregg during the play, which was potential double play due to tag-up by R3. Scorecard says R3 out at home, putout to 2, but no indication that there was an actual tag at plate. In one view, Ortiz is headed to first but looks back and sees PU eject pitcher and only then charges Gregg.

YouTube - ‪Red Sox Orioles FIGHT!!!! 7/8/11 Brawl LIVE‬‏
broadcast:
MLB.com Gameday | orioles.com: Gameday

Did the plate pull the trigger too early since the hitter was lumbering on toward first at the time?

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R3 (who went directly from the base to the fight area) was declared out for abandonment after the umpires huddled.

PO creditied to F2.

I'm guessing Reddick, #16 R3, was ruled out for abandoning his efforts. Pretty clear that he ran into the wash and didn't run to the plate without anyone calling time.

I thought outstanding job by Estabrook, stopped Ortiz after the 2-0 which was impressive. When they want to fight, they're going to, regardless of what you do or don't do.

Is it a dead ball situation once a player has been ejected? Say a pitcher goes head hunting with a high and tight wild pitch allowing R3 to race home. U1 signals ejection but F1 covers the plate as F2 comes up with the rebound and makes the throw in time to F1 to tag R3. Did the ejection make it a dead ball? Did the ejection make F1 ineligible to make anymore plays?

In the Red Sox game, could R3 have avoided an abandonment call after the fight by stepping on home before entering the dugout?

Perhaps it would be best for umpires to be instructed not to eject a player while there is continuous action.

Ejections during a play do not take effect until the play is over. Play continues.

9.01(d)

Thanks, Rich. There probably have not been many other ejections in the history of MLB when a batted ball was still in mid-air. R3 likely left the bag early too. That would have made for an unusual appeal as well.

It doesn't look to me like Ortiz looks back at the PU. He seems to look left at Gregg who is taunting him.

From a friend (and HS umpire) who was at the game: After the fight and because Gregg was ejected, the Orioles brought in a relief pitcher who warmed up for about 10 minutes. When he completed his warmups, Showalter called his team off the field. The Red Sox did not take the field for another minute or two.

If R3 was called out for abandoning the base, why did the umpires allow the relief pitcher to warm up? Or...my words...what took them so long to declare R3 out for abandonment?

Your friend has a very poor concept of time.

In a perfect world, everything would fall into place and the game could have been started up in a minute following the scuffle. Unfortunatly, this is not a perfect world. I have taken up to 10 minutes trying to sort out the ejections following a fight and the ensuing arguments and show-boating. Baseball has no time limit so it behoves an umpire to take his time and get the ejections correct.

I think now that replay is set up in every building, altercations should be reviewable as in the NBA. It would have not been cost effective to have this be the ONLY use of replay, but now that it is in place, there is little reason not to use it when determining who was hitting who in a 50 person mob. If the commissioner's office uses video for suspensions, umpires should be able to use it to determine these sorts of ejections.

That could take a very long time to review in a game situation. Papi warranted an ejection in a real time when he walked to the mound with bat in hand. Toss the pitcher then too and you save a lot of heartburn. Let the commish pour over it frame by frame to mete out fines and suspensions in a 50 player brawl.