Baseball and football don’t have too much in common unless you’re a pitcher for Weatherford College it seems.
Weatherford was hosting North Central Texas College for a doubleheader on Wednesday as part of North Texas Junior College Athletic Conference play. In the top of the sixth of one game, NCTC’s Josh Phillips cracked a home run that put the Lions up 3-2 on the Coyotes. That apparently didn’t sit very well with Weatherford’s pitcher and, as Phillips rounded third, he tackled the hitter and instigated a bench-clearing scene.
In a game between NCTC & Weatherford,
Josh Phillips hits a go ahead home run and the weatherford pitcher LEVELS him while he’s rounding the bases…
Only in Texas folks pic.twitter.com/Bb5lpQ4t34
— Texas College Baseball (@TexasCollegeBSB) April 20, 2022
Shoutout to the announcer’s very honest “Oh! Oh my! Oh no!” reaction. That about sums it up perfectly.
It’s unclear what instigated the full-on tackle but many are assuming there was some trash-talking going on at some point. Regardless, it’s a wild outcome on the play given that there was plenty of game left to be played.
Phillips, to his credit, got up from the tackle and left the scrum to go touch home base, ensuring that this home run did count in the record books.
Surely there are more details to come on why this happened and what kind of punishments might be in store for the pitcher, but Twitter certainly had some very strong reactions to the incident.
This is one of the craziest things I've ever seen! https://t.co/Qrf4KbUpKx
— Tanner Barth (@tanner_barth) April 20, 2022
Targeting https://t.co/caagzzlKkL
— Doug Gottlieb (@GottliebShow) April 20, 2022
This man forgot what sport he was playing pic.twitter.com/vGpqGmrlgT
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 20, 2022
Probably won’t play college baseball again. Damn. https://t.co/4sHYBsOeIC
— Rex Chapman🏇🏼 (@RexChapman) April 20, 2022
We expect to hear the Jim Ross-called version of this highlight very soon.