Aaron Boone was sitting in the dugout in the first inning when he was dismissed from the game unexpectedly. The New York Yankees manager promptly came out to plead his case to home plate umpire Hunter Wendelstedt, but the judgment had already been decided.
“I didn’t say a (expletive) thing,” Boone was caught on tape stating.
It all started when the Oakland Athletics’ Esteury Ruiz fouled a ball off his foot, but Boone assumed he swung at it. He expressed his displeasure, and Wendelstedt could be heard on the broadcast telling the manager, “You got anything else to say, you’re gone.”
Wendelstedt overheard something in the vicinity of Boone’s location and concluded that whatever irritated him was spoken by him. However, cameras capture a fan near Boone yelling something at Wendelstedt, prompting the umpire to turn around and toss Boone.
“I don’t care who said it,” Wendelstedt responded. “You’re gone.”
The A’s ended up winning 2-0. After the game, Boone expressed his displeasure with the decision to unfairly remove him five pitches into the game.
“It’s embarrassing,” Boone told the press. “It is absolutely awful. I could not believe it. “It is embarrassing.”
Speaking with a pool reporter, Wendelstedt stated that the fan had nothing to do with the ejection.
“This isn’t my first ejection,” Wendelstedt told ESPN. “In my whole career, I have never removed a player or manager because of something a fan shouted. I understand that will be part of a story or something similar because that is what Aaron was portraying. I heard something emerge from the end of the dugout that had nothing to do with his section. But he manages the Yankees. So he’s the one who had to leave.
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