Todd Tichenor throws a bat after Yasmani Grandal has nerve to prematurely leave batter’s box

There are definitely more egregious examples of an #UmpShow than what Todd Tichenor delivered tonight, but it was still a definite candidate.

Umpires are human, of course, and that means they’re going to have emotional reactions to things. They’re not robots (yet, sadly.) But there are certain times where they seem to go out of their way to make things about them, or to act as though any dissent to their own infallible judgment is an affront to their entire being.

That’s when we get Ump Shows. Extra points if the player was right.

To Tichenor’s credit tonight, the call that annoyed Yasmani Grandal was actually correct! Here it is:

Grandal thought that was ball four, which it wasn’t, but he dropped the bat and had to go back to the box. Umpires always seem to take a lot of offense to that particular move, and when Grandal walked on the next pitch, Tichenor took out his frustration:

Former catcher David Ross on commentary points out out that catchers like Grandal are normally extra-careful to not do anything that might possibly anger umpires, since they have to deal with the consequences for their own pitchers.

Here’s a full view of Tichenor’s response. That bat really got out there!

The confused batboy really makes that wide shot. Tichenor was back to joking with Grandal after a play at the plate in the next half-inning, which featured Tichenor falling down after being out of position due to the oddity of the play:

Another look:

And once again, credit to Tichenor, as he got that call right despite making it while faceplanting halfway up the first-base line. In the end, a bat toss is a bat toss. Tichenor probably shouldn’t have done it, though it’s understandable for a person to get annoyed when a player acts like you’re a moron and you were actually right. But umpires really should be above this, and it happens a lot, and if a player had done something similar in protest to a bad call, he could have been tossed for it.

It’s that double standard that’s most troubling during every moment like this, although they certainly make things more entertaining.