Joe Maddon is never shy about backing his players, or about sticking up for baseball’s unwritten rules.
So when Nationals manager Davey Johnson asked umpires to check Joel Peralta‘s glove for pine tar in the eighth inning of Tuesday’s game, it drew the ire of the Rays skipper.
Peralta was tossed by crew chief Tim Tschida after he was discovered to have a “significant amount of pine tar” on his glove, something that Johnson heard about from someone on his bench. But while the use of such is illegal, Maddon was irate after the game because he feels that the use of pine tar is common and that a player poll would reveal such.
“It’s kind of a common practice that people have done this for years,” Maddon said. “To point one guy out because he had pitched there, where there’s probably some common knowledge based on that, I thought it was a real cowardly — I’ve used that word twice this year — move.”
(Maddon, of course, also referred to the Red Sox’ plunking of Luke Scott earlier this season as “cowardly.”)
Peralta pitched for the Nationals in 2010, so Maddon therefore viewed Johnson’s check-up as “insider trading,” even calling the decision to ask for a review “bogus” and “bush.”
Maddon got back at Johnson by requesting that the umpires check Ryan Mattheus in the ninth inning, but no foreign substances were discovered on the Nationals reliever. Nevertheless, it was an act of gamesmanship on the part of Maddon, whose Rays ended up pulling out a victory.
Check out the ejection, and then Maddon’s postgame comments in the videos below.
Click here to read an opinion about Peralta’s ejection and Maddon’s comments >>
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Photo of the Day
Joe Maddon opted for the “everyone does it” excuse.
Quote of the Day
“Good for them. They still lose the game.”
–Joel Peralta, following his ejection on Tuesday night
Tweet of the Day
In honor of the first day of summer.
NESN Video of the Day
Hopefully Bergy brings home some hardware on Wednesday.
