Well, you don’t see this at a baseball game very often:
You never know what you’ll see at a professional sports game.
That’s something fans of the Daytona Cubs learned Wednesday night as they witnessed something a little out of the ordinary, even for Minor League Baseball.
They also learned that umpires do listen to what’s going around them, including outside the field of play.
One umpire ejected an intern from Wednesday night’s game for what he chose to play over the PA system during an argument on the field following a questionable call.
The song that got him tossed: “Three Blind Mice.”
If you’re a baseball fan, you already know umpires can be a prickly bunch. It’s not an easy job, and they often don’t get much respect from the fans in the stands.
But for home plate umpire Mario Seneca, whatever respect he did have from the fans may have been lost Wednesday night.
The controversial call came during the top of the eighth inning, with the Cubs up 2-1 against the Fort Myers Miracle. During a close play at first, a field umpire ruled the Cubs’ first baseman bobbled the ball, and that the runner was safe.
Daytona Manager Brian Harper came out to argue, and that’s when the intern, identified as Derek Dye in a video of the incident posted on YouTube, played “Three Blind Mice” over the PA system.
Seneca then turned and looked up at the PA booth and shouted, “You’re done!”
(…)
The fans at Jackie Robinson Ballpark kicked up the noise a notch for the remaining two innings of the game, and since the public address announcer was also ejected, a member of the Cubs’ management team stood on a box to announce the players coming to bat.
I never would have imagined that an umpire as the authority to eject a PA announcer, but apparently the same thing happened during another Minor League game in 1985. Seneca will be umpiring tonight’s game. Dye will be back. And the fans will be there too. Stay tuned.
Here’s the video (the sound is a bit low at the beginning):
