Ejection Question

November 19, 2007 1:46 PM

Do players and coaches from other sports get ejected from games as much as players and managers do in baseball?

I pretty much only watch baseball so I'm curious about this. I know that hockey has the penalty box and soccer has the red card, but what about basketball and football?

posted by josher71 to sports, hobbies, & recreation (27 comments total)

In basketball, two technical fouls or one Type 2 flagrant foul both result in an ejection.
posted by saladin at 1:53 PM on November 19, 2007

Oops, that should have said two technical fouls or two Type 1 flagrant fouls, or just one Type 2 flagrant foul, all result in ejection.
posted by saladin at 1:57 PM on November 19, 2007

Not a direct answer to your question, but in professional soccer (football to some of us), coaches can be and often are banned from the touchline during a game. Typically they go off to sit in the stands.
posted by galaksit at 1:58 PM on November 19, 2007

A piece in Slate earlier this year suggested that baseball managers actively try to get ejected as a means to motivate his players.
posted by mmascolino at 2:10 PM on November 19, 2007

Rugby Union has a "sin bin" for persistent technical offences, where the player has to leave the field for ten minutes. It also has a red card, similar to soccer, which is usually reserved for acts of physical violence.

Rugby coaches usually sit in the stand anyway, so very rarely incur the wrath of the officials.
posted by afx237vi at 2:14 PM on November 19, 2007

In american football, it's pretty rare for a coach to get tossed off. There's a lot of bitching at the refs that's just tolerated. And there's no real notion of yellow/red cards.. a personal foul on the field is 15 yards, and that's considered a big deal.

In bball, coaches get technicals on a semiregular basis, depending on how vocal they are. Coaches like Bobby Knight have gotten some pretty epic ejections, of which there are probably videos floating around.

In one of the most amusing things i've ever seen, a touch judge in a rugby match got sin binned for talking back to the ref.
posted by devilsbrigade at 2:19 PM on November 19, 2007

Just to try to keep this focused, the question is not "do other sports have rules that provide for the ejection of players and coaches," it's "Do players and coaches from other sports get ejected from games as much as players and managers do in baseball?"—in other words, other sports are irrelevant if such things occur but not very often.

I too am curious about this, as someone who pretty much watches only baseball, where ejections are quite common (maybe one every few games?).
posted by languagehat at 2:23 PM on November 19, 2007

languagehat said: Just to try to keep this focused, the question is not "do other sports have rules that provide for the ejection of players and coaches," it's "Do players and coaches from other sports get ejected from games as much as players and managers do in baseball?"—in other words, other sports are irrelevant if such things occur but not very often.


To clarify my comment about rugby. At the recent Rugby World Cup, there were 48 matches and from a quick glance at Wikipedia, there were 35 sin binnings, but just one red card (for a dangerous tackle).

So sin binnings are very common, and there are often matches where three or four players can be binned, but red cards are very rare.
posted by afx237vi at 2:40 PM on November 19, 2007

No. In most sports, it requires a fairly flagrant act. In hockey, for example, I can't remember the last time I saw a coach ejected. Players usually only get tossed when they perform an egregious hit- such as hitting from behind into the boards and instigating a near riot. It should also be noted that fighting does not usually result in an ejection.

Football is along the same lines as hockey, save for fighting. Ejections usually necessitates a clearly illegal and dangerous hit and are pretty uncommon.
posted by jmd82 at 2:41 PM on November 19, 2007

It's not an ejection, but players foul-out after five (six in the NBA, innit?) run-of-the-mill personal fouls.

Something to consider, maybe, is the number of games/matches played in a season. Does baseball or basketball really have more ejections on a per game basis than, say the NFL or the NHL?

How many MLB games are there in a given week, and for how many weeks, versus 15 or 16 NFL games for 16 regular season weeks?
posted by the christopher hundreds at 2:48 PM on November 19, 2007

It's not an ejection, but players [in basketball routinely] foul-out after five (six in the NBA, innit?) run-of-the-mill personal fouls.

FTFM
posted by the christopher hundreds at 2:50 PM on November 19, 2007

the question is not "do other sports have rules that provide for the ejection of players and coaches," it's "Do players and coaches from other sports get ejected from games as much as players and managers do in baseball?"

(Not snarking): It would be helpful (especially for us non-USains) for someone to explain how often baseball players/managers get ejected. I could probably find you stats for red cards in soccer fairly easily, but that's not much use if I I don't know how often ejections occur in baseball.
posted by Infinite Jest at 2:53 PM on November 19, 2007

Former sportswriter talking ... I have only anecdotal evidence to share, but ...

* Baseball has the longest season in sports (162 games), and it's divided into three- or four-day blocks of games (a "home stand") where the same officiating crew is present (although they rotate from position to position over the course of the home stand). That umpire you hate will be here tomorrow, too, and dozens of times this season. It therefore makes sense for managers to vehemently protest judgment calls, because they may influence not only the course of the game today, but also the games on the remainder of the home stand and over the extreme length of the season.

* Baseball has no time clock. There's no pressure for managers to get things done quickly. Go ahead and argue all day, it doesn't cost you much of anything.

* Baseball has a culture that is the most tradition bound of American sports. There is no instant replay, but there is a long tradition of arguing with the umpire.

* Baseball managers think getting thrown out of games will energize their team.

All of the above adds up to managers that argue loudly and often, and therefore get tossed out of games at a higher frequency than any other sport.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:54 PM on November 19, 2007

It would be helpful (especially for us non-USains) for someone to explain how often baseball players/managers get ejected.

Ejections are purely judgment calls on the part of the umpire. You can be ejected for anything, and there is no need for a warning or any other set policy or event to occur prior to the ejection.

In practice, managers are ejected for causing egregious delays, for leveling egregious insults and/or for physical contact. But the standards (such as they are) vary from umpire to umpire, manager to manager, and situation to situation.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 2:57 PM on November 19, 2007

Does baseball or basketball really have more ejections on a per game basis than, say the NFL or the NHL?

Let's put it this way ... taking the sport as a whole, a baseball manager getting ejected is a weekly occurrence during the season. Many of these events remain burned in my memory, because they're quite comical (fights, throwing bases, kicking dirt, etc).

Yet in my 39 years, I have not once seen an NFL or NHL head coach get ejected, to my memory.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 3:01 PM on November 19, 2007

"Go ahead and argue all day, it doesn't cost you much of anything."

To add to this, it can in fact be a way to delay the game at particularly opportune times, like when a pitcher's been spooked but your reliever hasn't warmed up yet. I've seen Leland suddenly care a lot more about minutiae when a middle reliever has just started in the bullpen.
posted by klangklangston at 3:30 PM on November 19, 2007

Basketball probably comes closest. It's not uncommon for coaches and players to be ejected for arguing with referees. Coaches quite often deliberately get technical fouls for motivational purposes or to make a point with the refs, sometimes to the point of ejection. I've seen it happen to players, as well. My sense is that this is a lot more common in the pros than in college. I don't think it's as common as in baseball, but by no means is it unusual.

I've never seen a coach ejected in football or hockey, though I'm sure it's happened at some point. Hockey refs can give penalties called bench minors (not an ejection) if a coach or player won't stop arguing, but I haven't seen this happen too often. Hockey has a certain structure that keeps a lid on things, in that the team captain is generally recognized as the team's representative with the officials, so the rest of the players and coaches don't chirp too loudly. You'll often see fairly calm discussions between captains and referees.

Player ejections in football I've only seen in the aftermath of fights. In hockey you'll see player ejections (a game misconduct penalty) only after flagrant and dangerous hits or attempts to injure. This also happens automatically if a player gets 3 fighting majors in one game, though this is pretty rare.
posted by shadow vector at 3:46 PM on November 19, 2007

The extreme example of baseball managers being ejected is Bobby Cox of the Atlanta Braves. He's managed 24 years in major league baseball and set the all-time record this past September at 133 ejections.
So the most ejection-prone baseball manager is ejected about 5.5 times a year.

The only other sport I can think of where the coach being ejected is not unheard of is basketball, where not just the players but also the coach is subject to ejection after two technicals. I seem to remember ejections coming up quite a bit in A March to Madness by John Feinstein, which is about one season in one conference in college basketball.
posted by Dr. Grue at 3:49 PM on November 19, 2007

The only coaches in hockey that I can think of getting ejected are Roger Neilson and Robbie Ftorek. Neilson was ejected in a playoff game, from Wikipedia:

"As the Canucks coach during a 1982 playoff game against the Chicago Blackhawks, he felt his team was unfairly penalized on several occasions during the third period. He took a white trainer's towel and held it on a hockey stick, as if to wave a white flag. Three other Canucks players did the same thing, and all were ejected from the game. By doing this, Neilson inadvertently started an NHL tradition. Canucks fans waved white towels by the thousands at the next game, a playoff tradition that continues to this day and that is widely copied by other hockey teams and by other sports as well."

Ftorek was ejected while coaching the New Jersey Devils in the 99-00 season. One of his players was boarded in the offensive zone (his face went into the boards) and the ref failed to call a penalty, the Red Wings then took the puck up the ice and scored. Ftorek flipped out and called the injured player back out of the locker room while he was getting stitched up to show the ref his bloodied face. He then further showed his displeasure by picking up a bench and throwing it on to the ice Bobby Knight style. This incident led to Ftorek's firing from a first place team with 8 games left in the regular season from the eventual Stanley Cup champions.

I'm sure other coaches have been thrown out too for throwing sticks on the ice but those are the two I'll remember.

To answer your question though, it's very very rare for a coach to get thrown out of a hockey game and it's also somewhat rare, although less so, for a player to get thrown out.
posted by crashlanding at 4:08 PM on November 19, 2007

In Baseball, a manager getting ejected also has less of a direct influence on the game then in some other sports.

For example, a basketball coach would be giving up free throws if they go ejected. I imagine a football ejection either gives the opposing team 15 more yards or sets your team back 15 yards.
posted by drezdn at 5:14 PM on November 19, 2007

There is no instant replay
Yet.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:40 PM on November 19, 2007

I would agree that ejection of hockey coaches at the NHL level is very rare, but this is not at all the case in junior and even minor hockey. See here, for example, and note how many coaches have been assessed game or gross misconducts in three months in a relatively small league...
posted by Urban Hermit at 6:41 PM on November 19, 2007

Here is a lovely video of baseball manager Earl Weaver getting ejected for cursing ("You and this crew are just here to fuck us"), and then spending 3 minutes really getting his money's worth from the ejection. languagehat and other fans of internet flameouts will enjoy.
posted by LobsterMitten at 7:21 PM on November 19, 2007

Baseball is really structured around judgment calls by the umpires (ball/strike; safe/out) and so I think the empires feel they need to show confidence in their judgment and therefore brook fewer arguments. I don't see other sports having such structured judgment by the officials, while umpires make a call on almost every single play/pitch.
posted by Rumple at 7:47 PM on November 19, 2007

My dad coached baseball, basketball, and football. I never remember him getting thrown out of a football game. He was twice thrown out of a basketball game. Once because he was so pissed that he grabbed a can of talcum powder and smacked it against the ref table so hard that it exploded. When they could find him in the cloud, they ejected him. The other time, he was yelling so energetically that his partial denture came flying out of his mouth and onto the court. He was ejected for being on the court during play while trying to retrieve before it was stepped on.

My dad has been ejected so many times from baseball games that I can't remember any specific incidents to relate. He had an especially volatile relationship with a certain ref he came to call "Rabbit Ears." He would never tell me the story behind that name.

To recap, my dad was thrown out of far more baseball games than all the other sports he coached. Combined.
posted by Foam Pants at 10:33 PM on November 19, 2007

Consider also that baseball coaches are also the only coaches/managers are the only ones in uniform (the Red Sox Terry Francona was actually interrupted mid-playoff game this year so that someone from the league office could check to make sure that he had a regulation uniform top on under his sweatshirt) and the only ones permitted to come onto the field of play. I think this makes them more like a member of the team, and therefore more subject to discipline by the officials.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:33 AM on November 20, 2007

Here is a lovely video of baseball manager Earl Weaver getting ejected for cursing

My favorite part is when the umpire says "Boom!" as he tosses Weaver.
posted by kirkaracha at 3:23 PM on November 21, 2007