The most memorable baseball game I ever attended was the one where Phil Wellman, then the manager of the Mississippi Braves, put on quite a show after his pitcher was thrown out of the game for doctoring the ball.
The Crazy Manager isn't as uncommon as you think.
Above: Jump to about 3:20. Below: Be warned, it has bad language. The manager was wearing a microphone.
The video above: you can skip to about 1:30.
While some of the greats, Bobby Cox, Lou Piniella, and Earl Weaver, especially, could argue with umpires for days, they never really went nuts like this. It's a sight to see, that's for sure! (Yes, I'm aware of Pinella's own base-throwing incidents. But ... yeah.)
In Japan, things are handled much more politely. I think any (Japanese-born) manager that put on such a show would be fired in an instant here, because the teams are related to companies, and the company's image (arguably) is at stake. Found this, though:
NPB Card Guy posted this card on his blog a few weeks ago:
No base throwing, but here are a few more great argumentarians for you:
You attended the Wellman game? That's the greatest single performance in the history of manager meltdowns. But Weaver and Billy are probably my favorites overall.
ReplyDeleteI love manager tirades.
ReplyDeleteFuji: Yeah, I was down the first base line in the front row. I had a great view! I couldn't believe what I was seeing. It was like Wellman had seen all of the other tirades, and memorized a list of them to be sure he did them all: steal the base, cover the plate, throw the hat... and then play army man!
ReplyDeleteI've seen Cox get tossed a few times, but watching the Weaver and Martin videos was a lot of fun.