I knew White Sox ace Lance Lynn had some redass in him, but I didn’t think I’d be writing a headline quite like that!
After the fourth inning in his start against the Oakland A’s, Lynn was going to be subject to one of those random foreign substance checks. But, as he explained after the game, the umpire was late getting over to him and he wanted to see the trainer quickly after the inning. So Lynn left his hat and his glove there for the umpire to check, but when the umpire said he also needed to see Lynn’s belt, the righty tossed it at the umpire from down in the dugout.
It wasn’t necessarily an AGGRESSIVE toss, but it sure didn’t seem like a good idea. As you would expect in that situation, Lynn was immediately ejected.
I don’t think this counts as a foreign substance ejection for purposes of the league’s mandatory suspension rule, though you could imagine that if a player actually intended to hide from a check, that would trigger the rule. Here, Lynn wasn’t trying to hide anything, he was just in a hurry. And then he probably lost his cool a little bit.
As Lynn described it, “No, he’s late getting over there. I’m trying to get some work done to go back out for the fifth and, obviously, I hurt his feelings. He threw me out because I tossed my belt. I said, ‘Well if you were over there on time we wouldn’t have this problem.’ I’m already in the dugout.”
I don’t know for sure that this is the first ever MLB ejection for a belt toss, but if it isn’t, I’d sure love to hear the tale of the first one.