New York Yankees manager Joe Girardi delivered an epic tirade after getting ejected for justifiably arguing a terrible strike call by home plate umpire Laz Diaz during the eighth inning of Monday night's game in Anaheim.
It happened with bases loaded and no outs with the game tied at 1-1 and Brett Gardner at the plate. Diaz called the 1-0 pitch a strike even though it was below the knees. Girardi had issues with Diaz's strike zone for much of the night and had finally had it:
“I mentioned to Laz in a respectful way that I thought the pitch was up to Kelly Johnson earlier in the game and he gave me the Mutombo,” Girardi said, waving his index finger back and forth the way former NBA All-Star Dikembe Mutombo used to after a big block. “I don’t appreciate that. I’m not a little kid. I don’t need to be scolded.”Unfortunately, Girardi's tantrum didn't help the Yankees, as they failed to score a run in the inning. Meanwhile, the Yankees bullpen gave up three runs on five consecutive walks in the bottom of the eighth inning to lose the game 4-1.
MLB has not allowed the video to be embeddable yet. For now, you can watch the video here with this link, and we will add it here once it becomes available.
UPDATE: We were able to track down this video, which shows a view of Diaz ejecting Girardi from the camera behind home plate:
GIF via Yahoo! Sports. H/T BLS, AP via ESPN.
Moonlighting as a blogger to pursue my interest and enjoyment of sports. Former high school and Division I athlete (now a "retired" family man) that loves watching and discussing all sports. Follow me on Twitter (@HoldoutSports) and like Holdout Sports on Facebook.
