Fan Tossed After Likening Umpire’s Job Performance to a Vacuum Cleaner

Just because you pay high ticket prices does not entitle you to say low things to the umpire. At least Bob Davidson sees it that way.

The MLB umpire ejected a Philadelphia Phillies fan after he insulted the 64-year-old in a profane but imaginative way at Citizens Bank Park Tuesday night. The Phillies describe the sixth-inning departure for the fan as more of a security suggestion than an ejection. That’s a nice way of characterizing the exit of someone for saying something mean.

Bob Davidson was also there, and chances are he liked the language less than the kids and young girls. Like Bob Davidson, they heard it last night not for the first time.

The umpire and the city’s both show a history of the behavior they exhibited last night. Philly fans (in?)famously pelted J.D. Drew with batteries and other projectiles when he played in the City of Brotherly Love for the St. Louis Cardinals after spurning the team as a suitor in the draft, booed Santa Claus at the Vet, and cheered Michael Irvin’s last play in the NFL when medical personnel carried him off the field on a stretcher. In 1989, the thin-skinned Davidson made history by ejecting a mascot. Halfway through a 22-inning game between the Montreal Expos and Los Angeles Dodgers, mascot Youppi! danced atop the Dodger dugout in a nightgown to the consternation of Tommy Lasorda and Davidson. Youppi! got tossed and the Dodgers, like the Phillies last night, eventually won the game.