I have never seen this in 45 years DET @ SEA
 

Leyland barking at Home Plate Umpire Brian Knight (normal), Leyland gets tossed for barking about a check swing call(normal), Leyland does not come out to argue(kind of odd)

Then a pitch or two later, the Tigers catcher(Laird) physically restrained Knight when he started yelling and going toward Verlander(THIS is what I have never seen) It was very very odd.

Has anyone ever seen anything like this? No video yet...

Can't wait to see video.

Just saw the video. Not sure I would have said he was physically restrained. The umpire started moving and I am sure the catcher said something to him to prevent him from focusing on Verlander and throw him out of the game. Verlander must have said something or had been saying something. It is hard to tell as they only showed the back of Verlander's head, so you cannot tell if his lips were moving.

But I have seen exchanges like that before. I cannot tell you how many times, but it has been more than a few times. Usually the pitcher gets dumped.

Peace

Happened last year in Boston. The BoSox were in the midst of blowing a big lead and Papelbon stared down the Tony Randazzo after a called strike. Randazzo stepped towards Papelbon and the catcher intercepted him.

Although it didn't stop the ejection (Papelbon charged Randazzo and bumped him) catchers routinely do their job by taking the focus off the pticher in these situations.

<iframe src='http://mlb.mlb.com/shared/video/embed/embed.html?content_id=21281083&width=400&height=22 4&property=mlb' width='400' height='224' frameborder='0'>Your browser does not support iframes.</iframe>

I think the surprising thing is that it seemed to work. Knight seemed intent on tossing Verlander until the catcher said something.

No problem with him dumping Leyland.

If Verlander was protesting Knight's strike zone you couldn't tell it from this angle. I suppose he could have been mouthing off without much body language. From the view shown here, it just appears thet Knight was itching to dump someone else. Hopefully I'm wrong.

It was a weird scene.

If Verlander said something to get tossed, toss him...but, taking steps toward him and yelling at him makes Knight look like a goof.

He probably did not want to dump the starting pitcher which might have been a relatively close or game still in question in the 3rd Inning. That would leave still 3 more innings to get a quality start and taking out Verlander now would result in having to get a reliever that probably is not warming up and would affect the bullpen for dome days as a result of an ejection to the ace. If that is the case I have no problem with not ejecting him there. And as stated, it worked and probably shut him up or his antics up which sometimes is as good as an ejection IMO.

Peace

If he takes any of these factors into account in deciding whether or not to eject, then he is a poor umpire. My guess is if Verlander had said or done anything worthy of an ejection, Knight would have done it. Which means this was simple grandstanding.

noooooooooooo, it could never be that!

Maybe, maybe not. But this is the bigs and what works for them doesn't necessarily work for us.

After having just dumped Leyland, I'm sure Knight wasn't looking to toss a star pitcher also unless he had to but he was going to let him know in no certain terms he needed to quit mouthing off. Arguing balls and strikes is not an automatic ejection. Detroit's F2 no doubt stepped in and said something to the effect of he would take care of him so Knight didn't have to.

Would I handle it differently in a HS or Colt game? Probably. MLB is a different world and in terms of that, Knight handled things just fine.

I totally disagree that it is poor umpiring as any decision takes into account many factors. What Verlander said, situation of the game, ejection of the manager for arguing balls and strikes, even the context of what was said and even what the catcher said all I am sure played a role as it should. He probably did not want to ejected Verlander too and wanted to get the game back under control. And unless there was something we did not see in the highlight, it seemed to have worked. I do not have a major problem without more information as to what Verlander said and what the catcher said and even what the umpire said. So much that would help me at least evaluate what should have been done. Otherwise this is just pure speculation.

Peace

Ed Rapuano.....
 

This happens a few times a season, I would say.

Baseball Video Highlights & Clips | MIL@MIN: Bush, home plate ump exchange words - Video | MLB.com: Multimedia

On our fields, I would likely agree with you. MLB, it's a different animal.

I suspect Verlander threw out an expletive after that pitch (which honestly wasn't close). PU was going to toss and F2 somehow said something like "That wasn't for you, he was mad at himself." and PU chose to believe it (again, the pitch wasn't close).