JT Realmuto Got Ejected For Moving His Glove As The Umpire Tried To Give Him A Ball

The relationship between athletes and referees/officials/umpires has never been more strained than it is right now and all parties involved are at fault. Athletes have become far too combative with officials, who have a near-impossible job given the jump in speed and physicality just about every sport is played with now. On the other side, officials now see just about everything as a slight against them, and some have far too quick of a trigger to hand out an ejection or technical or personal foul.

We saw a rather hysterical example of the latter on Monday afternoon in a Grapefruit League game between the Phillies and Blue Jays, as JT Realmuto asked for a new ball from umpire Randy Rosenberg. After it took a second for Rosenberg to get the ball out of his pocket, Realmuto flipped his glove over and pulled it down, leading to Rosenberg tossing the ball into the dirt. Rosenberg somehow took such great offense at this, thinking it was some diabolical prank by Realmuto, that he gave him an immediate (and forceful) ejection, that left Realmuto absolutely stunned.

As they explained on the broadcast, this came after a pitch clock violation against Craig Kimbrel, which likely had Rosenberg a little defensive and ready for pushback, but even so this is a hysterically soft ejection. Realmuto’s response tells the story as he just turns around asking “what?” after hearing that he’s outta there, and can’t help but chuckle at being tossed from a spring training game for what seemed like a simple misunderstanding — as the broadcast notes, the last time he asked for a new ball Rosenberg just threw it straight to the pitcher — and at absolute worst was a goofy little prank.