Phillies Catcher JT Realmuto Gets Ejected By Umpire For Doing Absolutely Nothing

JT Realmuto

Have you ever heard of the phrase “The Ump Show?” If not, it is the act of an umpire making a moment or game more about themselves than the competition at hand.

This video from Spring Training could be listed underneath the dictionary definition of “Ump Show.”

As teams are ramping up for opening day, the spring training sessions are slowly coming to an end. However, home plate umpire Randy Rosenburg thought that before the curtain call of the lead up to baseball, he wanted to have a moment in the spotlight.

After Phillies pitcher Craig Kimbrel was called for a pitch clock violation (I’m sure we’ll be seeing that a lot early in the season), catcher JT Realmuto was settling back down in his catching stance. Per usual, Realmuto reached up his glove to the ump behind him so that the ump would place a ball there and he could throw the ball back to the mound to get ready for the next pitch.

Realmuto’s catcher mitt extends backwards towards Rosenburg, who begins to reach into his “umpire fanny pack” to retrieve a baseball. Just as the umpire is about to place the ball into Realmuto’s glove, the catcher returns his glove back to side, and the ball drops to the dirt.

As Realmuto looks to his left to pick up the fallen ball, Rosenburg is busy getting ready to steal the show. The umpire cocks back his arm for an emphatic:

“YOU ARE OUTTA HERE.”

Umpire Randy Rosenburg ejects Phillie’s catcher JT Realmuto from the game.

I will admit, Rosenburg’s ejection arm movement was phenomenal, but what are you doing? Clearly (as you can see in Realmuto’s face in the video after he gets ejected) the whole thing was a simple misunderstanding.

Rosenburg could’ve just warned him or even allowed for the two of them to discuss what had happened, but instead the umpire decided he wanted the leading role in “The Ump Show:”

The umpire never backs down from his petty decision to throw Realmuto out of the game, even though he most certainly should have patted his chest protector plate and said “my bad.”

The Phillies catcher and manager (I still don’t understand why managers wear jerseys and have numbers) plead with the umpire to understand that the dropping of the ball wasn’t on purpose. The broadcast of the game even explains that the umpire had thrown the ball himself to the pitcher on the previous exchange, so Realmuto most likely assumed that the ump was doing that again when he didn’t feel the ball hit his mitt.

A truly stupid moment for Major League Baseball, but thankfully it wasn’t in the 162 game regular season, which is entirely necessary to determine the league’s best teams (*sarcasm*).

The new look, new rules season of MLB kicks off on Thursday (hopefully without Umpire Randy Rosenburg).

Only three more sleeps until baseball is back…

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