Despite the Phillies pulling out a 13-8 comeback win over Madison Bumgarner and the San Francisco Giants, the headlines aren’t being drawn towards the play on the field.
Instead, the interaction between home plate umpire Bob Davidson and a fan are grabbing the headlines across the country. In fact, he was trending on Twitter for some time.
At first, it looked like he was going to address the Giants bench, but he instead pointed out the fan in the blue shirt.
Watch the video below of Davidson suddenly stepping aside in the middle of an at-bat to address the heckling fan. You can hear Davidson point to a guy and say “Get that guy out of here.”
“This guy starts yelling, ‘You suck!’ You could tell he was ,” said the veteran umpire after the game. “And so, all right, suck is not bad. Then he kept it up for two hitters completely.”
The fan’s chants then got a bit more descriptive with some of his previous statements, causing Davidson to whip around and walk towards the seats.
“That’s when I turned around and said, ‘You know what, get rid of this guy.’ You could have your wife, girlfriend, kids — they buy tickets. They don’t have to come here and listen to that. That’s exactly what he said to throw him out.”
“People cheered me, which is unusual in this town for me,” Davidson said. It was especially unusual during Tuesdays game when Davidson’s strike zone was incredibly inconsistent (to little surprise) throughout the game.
Tuesday nights’ actions were not new to Bob Davidson. In 2010 he ejected a fan siting field level for taunting Cardinals catcher Yadier Molina, and using inappropriate slurs.
And with that, it’s now time to induct the drunk, blue shirt-wearing fan into the Philadelphia Fan Hall of Shame. This years’ class includes the fans who threw the Ed Snider bracelets onto the ice during the Flyers recent playoff run and Jim from Havertown who tries to call The Fanatic and WIP despite being banned.
They join the fans who booed Santa Clause, the guy who threw up on people on purpose, anyone who has booed McNabb at the draft, and the many more delightful fans who bring a black eye to our city and sports teams.