MLB should be absolutely ashamed of what just happened with former Tennessee coach Tony Vitello
Former Tennessee Vols baseball coach Tony Vitello is getting wildly mistreated in the big leagues.
What’s happening to former Tennessee Vols coach Tony Vitello right now just isn’t right.
And MLB needs to do something about it.
Vitello is in his first season as the manager of the San Francisco Giants after having no previous big league experience, and it’s very clear that umpires are treating him differently than other managers.
On Saturday, Vitello was ejected from the Giants’ win over the New York Mets for simply walking out of the dugout to ask the home plate umpire for clarification on a replay review.
The reason for the ejection, according to the umpire, is that managers aren’t allowed to argue replay review decisions (those calls aren’t made by the umpires on the field).
That’s an understandable rule, but it almost never plays out the way it did with Vitello on Saturday. I’m a baseball sicko, I watch this sport every day. And I see managers come out to talk about replay review decisions with umpires quite often, and it almost never leads to an ejection.
Vitello calmly walked out to talk to the umpire — he wasn’t combative — and immediately got ejected.
Now, that part is bad enough, but it’s even worse when you consider why Vitello walked out.
A little over a week ago, Vitello was ejected for arguing a foul ball because he didn’t come onto the field to argue.
Seriously.
“Last week I was ejected and told I was ejected because I didn’t come out of the dugout and talk,” said Vitello after the Giants’ win over the Mets on Saturday. “I had someone from the umpiring association tell me I should just walk out. And so I walked out without any fire in me just to explain what was coming out of our dugout and to calm the situation, and got thrown out for walking out of the dugout.”
Like I said, I watch a lot of baseball. While there are certainly umpires who have a quick trigger finger on ejections at times, no one is getting treated this way consistently like Vitello is. It’s ridiculous. And plenty of folks around baseball feel the same way.
“The umpires, I mean, even more so than players, pay their dues,” said Giants broadcaster Mike Krukow on KNBR’s Murph & Markus earlier this summer. “They’re in the minor leagues for a long time. That entire group, when they finally get to the big leagues, they have a mental toughness because they did what it took to get to the big leagues, and the road to the big leagues is normally twice as long for an umpire as it is for a player. And I do think that they’ve held that against Tony Vitello, 100 percent, and I think they bully him, and I think that he needs to rise above it and get back in their face.”
Giants starting pitcher Logan Webb also suggested last month that it’s possible Vitello is being treated differently by umpires.
The umpires need to get their egos in check and treat Vitello like any other manager because it’s clear they’re trying to “big league” the former Tennessee coach.
