One day after Yankees manager Aaron Boone was ejected by home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt for something a fan said, another umpire John Tumpane nearly did the same. In the top of the fourth inning of the second game against the A’s on Tuesday, Tumpane called a strike on a Marcus Stroman sinker outside of the strike zone. This sparked the ire of Oakland’s manager Mark Kotsay, who barked at Tumpane from the visitor’s umpire. Like deja vu, Tumpane barked back, and the YES Network booth was all over it.
“I’m not going to talk about balls and strikes,” Tumpane can be heard yelling. “I’m right there. I’m right there with them. You know that.”
Yankees announcers Ryan Ruocco and John Flaherty took the opportunity to troll the home plate umpire. “Is that a Hunter Wendelstedt impression?” Ruocco said as cameras cut to Wendelstedt, who was umpiring from third base. “Hunter didn’t want to take ownership of that yesterday either. His postgame comments were interesting,” Ruocco continued as YES Network cameras scanned the audience just above the visitor’s dugout. “Well, was it any of them or was it someone actually in the A’s dugout?”
Fortunately, Tumpane didn’t toss Kotsay. Unlike the previous day when Boone was accused of lying by blaming the umpire heckling on a fan, even though a live mic from YES backed up the manager.
“If you said you can see a fan yelling at me, he wasn’t the only one and it probably lines up with behind Boone and maybe that’s what Boonie heard,” Wendelstedt said, via Randy Miller of NJ Advance Media. “I was approaching Aaron Boone because of something that happened at the further end of the dugout, and as manager of the Yankees, he’s responsible for the entire dugout, not just his vicinity. And that’s just how I took it.”
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