There’s nothing quite like baseball.
In what other sport can someone be thrown out of a game for playing a children’s nursery rhyme? That’s exactly what happened in this throwback clip out Florida, where a minor league matchup went completely off the rails thanks to “the umpire show.”
Seeing someone ejected from a baseball game isn’t completely out of the norm, though the person removed from the game by the umpire is usually a coach or a player. Rarely ever is the ejected person the team’s organist…
Back in 2012, the Daytona Cubs were facing off against what was then called the Fort Meyers Miracle (now more enjoyably named the Fort Meyers Mighty Mussels) when an ejection for the ages happened out of nowhere.
Umpire Mario Seneca had made some questionable calls throughout the night, and the Daytona Cubs’ organist Derek Dye decided to have a little fun with him by playing the non-lyrical version of “Three Blind Mice.” He at least thought it was fun, as did many of the fans in attendance. There was only one person that didn’t think it funny, and that was the ump.
In a shocking turn of events, Seneca turned around to face the media boxes where the team organist was located, pointed up at the music guy Derek Dye, and emphatically threw his arm to the sky while yelling:
“YOU’RE GONE! The guy playing ‘Three Blind Mice.’ Turn the sound off for the rest of the night.”
The announcers calling the game were confused at first, thinking that the umpire had ejected one of the players on the field. They completely lost it when they realized that Derek Dye, Daytona’s organist, was the one that had been thrown out of the game.
I’m not entirely sure what the extent of an umpire’s power is, but I have to think it stops somewhere before “being able to eject an organist.” It’s got to be one of the wildest things that’s ever happened in the history of sports refereeing and umpiring.
Check it out:
The good news was that the Daytona Cubs rallied after their organist got thrown out, and ended up winning the game 2 to 1. Take THAT Mario Seneca. You turned an entire team and stadium against you by throwing out their music guy Derek Dye, and they still won the game.
