Cardinals, Rockies Unite in Silent Protest Against Unreasonable Umpire

One night after home plate umpire Doug Eddings made a very arguable fool of himself, players from the Cardinals and Rockies came together to let Eddings, the officiating crew and the world know how they felt about his conduct earlier in the series.

St. Louis manager Oliver Marmol was ejected from Friday’s series-opening win over Denver after arguing with Eddings over the way he treated his rookie reliever Hancel Rincon earlier in the sixth inning.

With Rincon behind in the count 2-0, Eddings stopped the game and told Rincon, who was making his debut, to straighten his hat. According to Marmol, Eddings said that “the kid’s not going to wear his hat like that on my field.”

A couple of batters later, Rincon is out of the game, having allowed a run, and Marmol is back out on the field arguing with the home plate umpire while Rincon’s replacement warmed up on the mound. Marmol had some choice words for him, leading to his ejection.

But on Saturday night, the Cardinals and Rockies sent a united response on behalf of players across the league.

Cards tilt their caps in protest

Eddings attempt to keep tilted caps off “his field” failed miserably on Saturday, Sept. 5 after the entire Cardinals team, bench players in the dugout included, wore their caps tilted to the side during the game.

The team even implemented a new celebration where they tilt their batting helmets on singles. Broadcasters even spotted some tilted caps in the Rockies’ dugout as well.

According to the Cardinals’ broadcast, Eddings told pool reporters that Rockies slugger Hunter Goodman “had mentioned something about the hat.”

“The batter said, ‘Hey, can he wear his hat like that?¨Eddings told reporters. Ï really didn’t know. It was really, really, crooked. So I asked the catcher to tell him to straighten his hat out and the pitcher did.”

Hunter Goodman says he didn’t mention the hat at all.

Cardinals players were spotted tilting their hats during batting practice ahead of Saturday’s game. One teammate said the team talked about the incident on the bus ride over, word spread, and they decided, “this is for Rincon today,” the St. Louis Dispatch reported.

“The one superpower we’ve had through the whole season is our ability to unify,” starter Matthew Liberatore said.

The Cardinals lost Saturday’s protest game 10-7 and sit four games out of the last Wild Card spot with 19 games left in the season.