New York star Aaron Judge added another first to his illustrious Major League Baseball career on Saturday when he was ejected from the Yankees’ 5-3 victory over the Detroit Tigers.
Yankees captain Judge, the American League Most Valuable Player in 2022 when he set the AL record for homers in a season with 62, had played 869 MLB games without being tossed.
He admitted he was “a little surprised” to find himself ejected by home plate umpire Ryan Blakney for a comment after a called third strike in leading off the seventh inning.
Judge voiced his disapproval of the call, but didn’t think what he said warranted ejection.
“I was walking away kind of saying my piece,” Judge said. “I’ve said a lot worse. (The ejection) made a scene, and I usually try not to make a scene in situations like that, so I was a little surprised walking away that it happened.”
Judge, the first Yankees captain to be ejected from a game since Don Mattingly in 1994, said he had never been thrown out of a game at any level of baseball.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone thought the punishment was unwarranted.
“I was surprised,” Boone said. “Judgy says very little, usually. (He was) very respectfully walking away.”
But umpire crew chief Alan Porter told a pool reporter that Judge apparently “said something that you shouldn’t have said,” without elaborating.
“There are things you cannot say no matter what’s going on,” Porter said.
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