Sports should be all about fair play, right? But according to Ben Verlander, umpire Vic Carapazza is missing that mark. For this, first, let’s flashback to a couple of months ago when Vic ejected Edwin Diaz for ‘sticky hands’, which, by the way, caused a lot of controversies. Fast-forward and now, he has found himself in another sticky situation with Justin Steele. It’s like a deja vu, but a weird one!
The Chicago Cubs pitcher was found with something on his hand, too, but instead of being ejected on the spot, he was immediately told to go wash it off. Normally, it wouldn’t be a big deal if the same umpire had not ejected Edwin Diaz for the exact mirror situation. But he did, and this discrepancy has sparked yet another controversy. Plus, it has also left top analyst Ben Verlander scratching his head over it.
What did top analyst Ben Verlander say?
After the incident, the former player took to his Twitter account to let people know how he felt about this difference of treatment: “Justin Steele was told to go wash his hands after the umpire felt a sticky substance on his hand.” in the next line he dropped the main angle “It’s the same umpire that tossed Edwin Diaz immediately with no opportunity to wash his hands.” You can see why he’s upset—both situations are very parallel to each other and involve a lot of the same people, too. Guess what team Edwin Diaz was playing on the day he got ejected? It was the Cubs, and the only thing different was the aftermathe.
When Steele got a chance to clean up, Diaz was immediately shown the door without any opportunity to fix the situation. If Diaz had been given the same chance, who knows? Things would have been different for The New York Mets. Instead, the 10-day suspension hit them right when they were starting to turn things around. In the same tweet, Ben could not stop but explain what was going on in his head. “It just doesn’t make sense.” While both situations were highly identical, they probably had one difference: the hand.
Steele had stickiness on his non-pitching hand, while Diaz had it on his dominant hand. Could this be why the situations were handled so differently? It’s hard to say for sure, as the umpire has yet to comment on this. Also, you and I are not the only ones amazed by this decision. The player in question, Justin Steele, was also surprised!
Post-game, the Cubs’ pitcher opened up about how he felt during the incident. “You could probably see me shaking,” he said. If you missed the game, Ben also attached a video of the incident in the same tweet so you can see for yourself that Justin’s reaction was spot on. He added, ” I was like, ‘I’m not really doing anything wrong here,’ but I was scared to death, honestly (laughing).” Given Vic’s recent history with sticky situations, Justin’s fear is entirely justified. If things had gone south, his 22nd start of the year could have turned into a break in the action.
Cubs manager Craig Counsell also shared his reaction after-game: “You’re not allowed to have rosin on your non-pitching hand. So they just asked him to take it off, and he took it off, no big deal. ”Justin also admitted that afterward, the umpires got really cautious of him and were checking to make sure everything was fine after every inning. Thankfully, things went fine for the 29-year-old, but we cannot say that for Diaz. The Chicago fans may have taken a sigh of relief, but this just reopened the wounds for those who love the Mets.
Well, there are a lot of striking similarities between the Cubs and the Mets: surprisingly, both teams won their respective game despite this ‘sticky’ incident. Now, it would be interesting to see what the umpire, Vic Carapazza, has to say about this situation. What do you think; was it really a discrepancy from his side, or, due to recent controversies, it has become too easy to criticize umpires? Let us know in the comments.
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