In the Victorian era, hitting someone across the face with your glove was a way of showing that someone had truly offended you. In 2019, it still means that, and it means you’re out of the ball game.
After being called out on what appeared to be a borderline pitch during the second inning of the Mariners game against the Yankees on Monday night, Seattle’s Keon Broxton disgustedly tossed his batting gloves back in the direction of home plate. Unfortunately for Broxton, Umpire Manny Gonzalez was still standing there.
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After becoming quite possibly the first man in over 100 years to have felt the cold humiliation of an indignant glove across the face, Gonzalez reacted promptly by ejecting Broxton. After the ejection, Broxton, who still didn’t realize the serious and quite possibly historic thing he had done, expressed anger at being ejected from the game.
Gonzalez said to Broxton, “You hit me in my face.”
After the game, Broxton took full responsibility for the incident.
“I didn’t know I hit him until I turned around and he told me,” Broxton said. “I just heard the crowd after a couple seconds after I let the batting glove release. I turned around and he said, ‘You hit me in the face. You’re out.’ I was like, ‘Argh. I did not mean to do that at all.’
“The odds of that happening are very slim. It’s really unfortunate it happened, but it’s all on me. That’s a lesson learned. I can handle things in a better way. I could have just walked to the dugout and put my stuff down and gone back out there, regardless of how I felt about the call. I take full responsibility for it.”
Gleyber Torres and Mike ford went deep and the Yankees won the game, 5-4.
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn