Tim Anderson was thrown out of a game after getting hit.
MLBBy Andrew Bucholtz on

Tension in baseball over celebrations has been seemingly amping up over the last few years, but Wednesday saw a particularly strange one. In the Kansas City Royals-Chicago White Sox game, White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson hit a home run and launched a mammoth bat flip; in his next at-bat, he was hit by Royals’ pitcher Brad Keller.

That led to Anderson talking to catcher Martin Maldonado, to the benches clearing, to White Sox manager Rick Renteria going after Royals’ manager Ned Yost, to home-plate umpire Joe West physically holding Renteria back and tossing Anderson as well as Keller, and to some criticisms of the reaction from the Royals and West from an unusual source; NBC Sports Chicago White Sox play-by-play announcer Jason Benetti. First, here’s Benetti’s call of the home run, complete with “the ball was majestic, the bat was a javelin”:

Here’s the Royals’ broadcast on Fox Sports Kansas City covered the benches clearing:

Here’s the White Sox broadcast zooming in on Renteria being held back by West:

There don’t appear to be many video clips of Benetti’s comments on the situation beyond that one, but tweets make it pretty clear he was quite critical.

https://twitter.com/MLBastian/status/1118609788320010240

Meanwhile, NBC Sports Chicago analyst Scott Podsednik was also quite critical of this (especially West’s ejection of Anderson) after the game (which the White Sox would lose 4-3 in 10 innings), calling it “bananas” and more:

There’s been backlash to beanings and other criticisms of celebrations before, of course, including a “Let the kids play” ad from MLB itself last postseason (which the White Sox were referencing in their home run tweet). But many baseball broadcasters are older and grumpier, and love finding things to criticize in today’s game, often including celebrations. So it’s interesting to hear some of that backlash coming from someone in a broadcast booth.

 

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

View all posts by Andrew Bucholtz

3 thoughts on “Tim Anderson hit a home run, flipped his bat, was drilled, and was ejected, and White Sox announcer Jason Benetti got upset”

  1. This didn’t seem so bad. No sky-pointing or complicated choreography.
    Seemed more like a petulant poopy-pants 70 win team exposing their thin skin to a 75 win team.
    Baseball!

  2. Because Jason Benetti knows EXACTLY what Anderson said, and EXACTLY how he said it, so he knows that he never should have been thrown out. Right.

  3. He was kicked out for being an idiot. After what he said to Keller, he deserved it. Can you imagine a white player calling Anderson the racial slur that he used? You idiots would be calling for his head on a platter.

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