For one college baseball umpire, enough hot-dogging was enough.
He ejected East Carolina pitcher Josh Grosz from a game this week at the American Athletic Conference Tournament after Grosz handed teammate Jacob Starling a frankfurter to celebrate Starling's first-inning home runs against USF.
Home runs props are nothing new in college baseball or MLB, but they were banned in college after teams popularized them. The hot dog apparently counted as a prop.
🏴☠️🌭 ECU Baseball’s Josh Grosz ejected from the first round AAC Tournament game vs USF for giving Jacob Starling a hot dog on the field after his first inning home run. pic.twitter.com/4gT0nJXFXa
— Pirate Radio ☠️ (@PR927FM) May 23, 2023
Craziest ejection reasoning I have ever seen… ECU pitcher Josh Grosz gets ejected for giving Jacob Starling a hot dog on his way in from his home run 🤯 pic.twitter.com/IqNT2IxL4y
— Echo Baseball (@echobaseball) May 24, 2023
It's not known exactly why this warranted an ejection, but if the goal was to send a message, the ump certainly succeeded.
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"That's the new rules, I guess. No fun baseball," ECU manager Cliff Godwin told reporters, per Cox Media Group, after the Pirates lost the game 12-11 in 11 innings.
Grosz also missed his scheduled start Wednesday against Cincinnati because of the ejection. The Pirates won that game 9-6 to stay alive in the tournament. They will play UCF in an elimination game Friday.
Perhaps Grosz would be better served "celebrating" like Jac Caglianone did for Florida against Georgia in April.
Umpire tossed Brandon Neely from the game after his strike out celebration in the top of the 8th. Jac Caglianone then hits a grand slam and makes sure there’s no reason for him to get tossed too pic.twitter.com/UYN8EQny2h
— Stephen Schoch (@bigdonkey47) April 16, 2023
Next time, Grosz should keep the hot dog in the dugout and tuck himself away. An umpire can't eject what they can't see.
