Managers vs Umpires

I like baseball. I like funny. Into my feed the other day popped a superclip of Tommy Lasorda being ejected from baseball games. Even as a Giants fan, I can't help but love the man who bled Dodger blue as he managed the Dodgers for 20+ years. I wondered - how many times did Tommy get ejected? I knew he was never one to hide his emotions and had zero problems running out to meet an umpire head-on and speak his mind. Surely he's got to hold some kind of record. I looked it up, nope, Tommy's not even in the top 10.

That's more than enough to get me asking my favorite kinds of questions - questions with numbers for answers - and I was off to the races. Which manager has been ejected the most times? Which the fewest? Who did the most ejecting? I discovered two ways to answer those questions - quantity and frequency. Quantity is simply which manager's been ejected from a ballgame the most times, and which umpire's given out the most ejections. Frequency is quantity over time - which manager has the highest rate of ejections per season, and which umpire gives the most ejections per season.

The one metric that got me excited about going down this rabbit hole was how much more likely a manager was to be ejected from a game than a player. As of August 31, 2024, 20,749 men have played professional baseball and 1,087 men have managed - about 5% of all the baseball team members that ever were. Also, as of August 31, 2024, there have been close to 15,800 ejections from baseball games - 6,236 of which were managers, or about 39.5%. 5% of the people on the field/in the dugout received a disproportionate 39.5% of all ejections. When you consider that about 30 people are in the dugout - 25 players, a manager, various coaches - what gets my brain turning handstands is that 1/30th of the people gets 2/5th of the ejections.

Quantity

As with all things, some people excel where others don't. Which brings us to who's been ejected the most.

Manager Bobby Cox has the most ejections in history - 162 over 29 seasons. That's more than all the managers who were ejected two times or less (87 of them for a collective 121 ejections). That's also a full season. Bobby Cox managed 29 seasons, but as there are 162 games per season some people often joke that Bobby Cox only managed 28 of his 29 seasons.

Second place is John McGraw with 121 ejections, followed by Leo 'Leo the Lip' Durocher with 100, Earl Weaver with 96 and Tony La Russa with 93 to round out the top five. The loveable Tommy Lasorda, who got me started counting all this jazz, is tied for 26th place having been ejected just 48 times.

All these managers didn't eject themselves, however, someone had to send them on their way.

Starting us off is the great Bill Klem. If you've ever watched Ken Burns' documentary Baseball, that's a name you might have heard a few times. Starting in 1905, Klem ejected 251 people over the next 37 years. Nowadays the rules for ejecting someone are more strict, but back then it was a bit more loose. He had many nicknames over the years - one of which he loved, The Old Arbitrator, and one he hated, Catfish. Anyone who called him 'Catfish' was almost guaranteed an ejection. In fact, he hated it so much that he once ejected a player for drawing a picture of a catfish with his foot in the dirt.

Second was Cy Rigler who not only holds the record for giving out the 2nd most ejections - 192 - but he also holds the record for the most times an umpire ejected the same person. Rigler ejected Johnny Evers 22 times.

Third place goes to Hank O'Day who ejected 185 people, followed by Bob Davidson who ejected 156, and finally to round out the top five we have Joe West who ejected 151.

Frequency

While all these numbers are impressive, they're spread out over the course of some very long careers. Bobby Cox might have been ejected 162 times, but over 29 seasons (more specifically 4,508 games) his ejection rate was 5.82 times per season. Bill Klem might have ejected 251 people, but over 37 years his ejection-issuing rate was 6.78 per season. So who, then, got kicked out, or did the kicking out, the fastest? I'm so glad you asked.

(Please note I'm only taking into account those managers who managed a full 162 games - one season's worth of games - or more. For example, Jeff Newman managed the A's for just 10 games in 1986 and was ejected once. Extrapolate that to a full year and he was on pace to getting ejected 16.2 times a season but that never happened)

Manager Bill Dahlen was ejected 36 times over the 615 games he managed, which at 162 games/season gives him an ejection rate of 9.48 ejections/year. Second place is Larry Schlafly who was ejected 10 times over the 196 games he managed, earning him a rate of 8.27/year. Next is Burleigh Grimes who was eject 15 times over 306 games, a rate of 7.94/year. After that we have Cal Ripken Sr. who was ejected 8 times over his 169 games managed - a rate of 7.67 ejections/year. And the end of our top five is Paul Richards, who was ejected 82 times over 1,837 games managed, giving him an ejection rate of 7.23/year. When you consider the six months of a baseball season, that's more than once a month for each of them.

But getting kicked out once a month is nothing compared to actually doing the kicking out every couple weeks, as our most efficient umpires have done.

The ultimate in seeing players and managers out the door, with both speed and class, was Lord Byron. He didn't just call balls and strikes - he sang them. He didn't just call a player out - he recited poetry. And in just seven seasons as umpire, he dismissed 115 people - a rate of 16.43/season. That's more than every other week. An often recited poem to batters who argued a call went thusly, "Let me tell you something, friend - Before you grow much older - You cannot improve your average, Sir - With the bat upon your shoulder."

Second most frequent ejector of baseball sportsmen was Mal Eason who ejected 85 people over 8 seasons, which gives him a rate of 10.63 ejections/season. Third is Silk O'Loughlin who ejected 145 people over 17 seasons, a rate of 8.53/year. Next is Gary Darling, with 111 ejections over 14 seasons for a rate of 7.93. And 5th place on the top five most frequent ejecting umpires list is Frank Dascoli, who sent 106 people away over 14 seasons for a rate of 7.57/year.

Trends

To see if there's been any trends in ejections I overlaid every manager's ejection history on top of each other, and I also overlaid every umpires ejections history on top of each other. Some record setting ejectees and ejectors not withstanding, there is indeed a trend. There was a bump in ejections in the 1910's, and then a drop off shortly after 1920. Ejections never really stopped, but after WWII there was a spike which slowly climbed until around 2000. Shortly after 2000 ejections suddenly began to drop off until around 2016/17 when they dropped off sharply. What happened after 2000? Replay review. 2008 was the beginning of replay review, with updates/additions to the system on 2014, 2015, and 2016. With managers not allowed to challenge a replay, they suddenly had much less to argue about with umpires.

Fun Finds

In reading up for this data visualization I learned some neat things about ejections and umpire history.

• Prior to 1888, the worst an umpire could do was impose a fine.
• Today there are 12 official ejection criteria an umpire can follow, known as the Standards for Removal from the Game. Just because someone might break one of the following rules, it's up to the umpire to decide when enough is enough.

1. Vulgarity/profanity used towards an umpire
2. Touching an umpire
3. Refusing to stop arguing with an umpire after being warned to stop
4. Leaving your position to argue balls and strikes
5. Arguing a replay review
6. Offensive gestures toward an umpire
7. Ridiculing an umpire - mimicking how an umpire should do his job
8. Throwing equipment
9. Failure to comply with an umpire's order
10. Arguing another player's ejection
11. Intentionally throwing at a batter
12. Fighting

• In the early days of umpires being allowed to eject players, the rule clearly stated that an umpire could 'eject a player for the rest of the day'. So there's a list of players who missed both games of a double header due to being ejected in the first game.
• May 25th, 1889, Fred Goldsmith was the first umpire to eject someone from a ballgame - his victim was Dave Orr from the Columbus Colts (of the American Association) for arguing a call at third base. Goldsmith told Orr, "your services are no longer needed for the day."
• Seven days later, on June 1, 1889, the National League saw it's first ejection. Umpire Wes Curry ejected NY Giants Buck Ewing for ... 'using foul language'.
• Hugh Jennings was the first person ejected from a post-season and World Series game on October 9, 1907, for arguing a call at second base.
• The most ejections in one day occurred on August 12, 1984, when 18 different people were ejected. Jim McKean threw out Orioles manager Joe Altobelli that day for arguing a fair/foul call. The other 17 came in the game between the Braves and Padres in Atlanta on that Sunday afternoon. The two teams participated in a bean ball war which saw both managers (Dick Williams and Joe Torre), two Padres coaches (Jack Krol and Ozzie Virgil Sr.), 4 Braves players and 9 Padres players tossed from the contest.
• May 8, 1979, during an umpire strike, a replacement umpire sent away the entire Cardinals team. A throw to second was ruled safe by minor-league umpire Dave Pallone, even though Cardinals shortstop Garry Templeton said he made the tag and the runner was out. Keith Hernandez ran out to the umpire to protest, accidentally bumped into the umpire, and since you can't touch an umpire Hernandez was ejected. Other players also raced in - not only to argue the original call at second, but to protest Hernandez's ejection. One called the umpire a scab - ejected. Another cursed at the umpire - ejected. With three Cardinals kicked out the game in rapid succession, the entire Cardinals bench roared - throwing cups, towels, baseballs, jackets, and more onto the field. So the umpire pointed at the bench and sent them all back into the locker room to wait until called upon when needed.
• Connie Mack was ejected once during his three years as manager of the Pirates. The even got so heated police were called to the field. Connie looked around and took notice, felt immediately embarrassed and ashamed, and swore then and there to conduct himself as a gentleman from then on. He then went on to manage the Philadelphia A's for 51 years - never once again getting ejected, managed his team while wearing a suit and tie instead of a uniform, and created a code of conduct for all his players to abide by.

The first five managers ejected from a game were:

• 1889, Ned Hanlon of Allegheny City (soon to be the Pirates) became the first manager ejected from a game
• 1891, John Montgomery Ward, manager of the Brooklyn Baseball Club (soon to be the Dodgers)
• 1892, Charles Comiskey of the Reds
• Also in 1892, Jack Crooks of the Cardinals
• 1894, John Montgomery Ward again! This time as manager for his cross-town rivals the Giants. I hope my sharing this adds to the Giants/Dodgers rivalry.