College baseball ump pushes batter to run after home run

Baseball umpires have been having a pretty rough go of it recently, though most of the time it’s entirely their fault. Whether it’s because they’ve made insane calls, no-calling obvious strikes, or just being generally bizarre and thin-skinned, it seems like there’s a bad story about an umpire every day at all the different levels of the sport.

Monday it was college baseball’s turn, apparently, when an umpire decided to put his hands on an East Carolina batter following a home run.

East Carolina was taking on Coastal Carolina on Monday in the Greenville Regional and looking to get back on track a day after their 20-game winning streak came to an end. They won the game 13-4 and now advance to the Super Regionals where they’ll host Texas.

The Pirates put the game away in the 7th inning, scoring five runs before Bryson Worrell stepped to the plate. Worrell jacked a three-run home run to make it an eight-run inning and extend ECU’s lead to 13-2. Before getting on his way to run the bases, Worrell took a moment to admire his handiwork. However, it appeared that home plate umpire Perry Costello was not a fan of Worrell’s brief moment and put his hands on the batter, pushing him to run the bases.

That seems….pretty wrong, right? If a player or coach put their hands on an umpire, he’d be thrown out of the game and possibly suspended. And while the ump might want to make a statement by getting a player to start running, actually pushing them to do so feels like a major no-no.

That was certainly the reaction of many baseball fans and others on social media, many of whom chided the ump for being the fun police, overstepping his boundaries, and making unwarranted contact with the player.

We’ll see if the NCAA says or does anything about Costello’s actions. At the very least, a public reminder that umpires have no right to push players would be the decent and correct thing to do.

[ECU]