Home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt ejected New York Yankees manager Aaron Boone in Monday’s home game against the Oakland Athletics at Yankee Stadium, but this was no ordinary ejection.
The New York Yankees opened a four-game series against the Oakland Athletics in an early afternoon contest, the last series of a seven-game homestand before they hit the road for a seven-game trek.
Oakland won 2-0 in a low-scoring affair, but the most entertaining part of the game was Boone’s ejection in the first inning. In the first clip below, you can hear Wendelstedt threaten to eject Boone after hearing some trash-talking near the Yankees dugout.
Boone stresses that he didn’t say anything to Wendelstedt, who ends up ejecting him anyway (WARNING: CLIP below contains language that Is NSFW):
And in this separate camera angle, you can see that it was indeed a heckling fan who was screaming at Wendelstedt, and not Boone:
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After the game, Boone called the call to eject him “embarrassing”, via Bryan Hoch of MLB.com.
With the loss, the Pinstripes fell to 15-8. They’re tied with the Baltimore Orioles (14-7) for first in the AL East, though the O’s can take sole possession of first place with a victory over the Los Angeles Angels tonight.
New York Yankees Are Off To A Hot Start
The Yankees entered the 2024 season with relatively high expectations after trading for superstar Juan Soto, adding another powerful bat to complement Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton.
But with ace pitcher Gerrit Cole and infielder DJ LeMahieu sidelined to begin the season, a slow start would have been understandable. Instead, the Yankees have been a resilient bunch in the early going, cementing themselves once again as an American League heavyweight.
This was a pivotal year for a proud organization that missed the postseason in 2023 for the first time in seven years. But with reinforcements on the way, it already feels like the Yankees are poised to return to October baseball in 2024.
