Terry Francona throws out umpire in funniest ejection of the season (Video)

Cleveland Indians manager Terry Francona turned the tables after being tossed by umpire James Hoye on Friday.

It’s been a down year for major-league umpires, at least it seems like more than usual. Fans are calling for robot umps to fix some terrible strike calls, they still don’t explain reasonings behind changed calls from video replay, and now they’re policing the sticky substance crackdown in the majors.

Sure some of those things are beyond their control, but some of the calls from umpires will leave you scratching your head. To their credit, they don’t have much time to react, even though it’s what they’re trained for. So things can get tricky especially when you throw in bizarre plays like this one between the Royals and Indians on Friday.

Indians manager Terry Francona gave an umpire the boot

From third base, Cleveland outfielder Daniel Johnson broke for the plate on a ground ball and was caught in a run down between third and home. As he retreated back to third, Cleveland infielder Cesar Hernandez, who was at first base for the start of the play, also broke for third as Johnson bought him some time in the run down. Both runners ended up at third base at the same time, and both were called out on the play.

Are you still with me? Here’s an easier visual to follow along with.

Francona wasn’t a fan of the call, and proceeded to throw out umpire James Hoye shortly after Hoye gave Francona the boot.

To clarify, the rule does state if two runners go to the same base, the lead runner gets the base. In this case Johnson (lead runner) would have been safe and Hernandez (trailing runner) should have been out.

The reasoning behind the original call was due to Johnson coming off the base, yet they still called Hernandez out even though he remained on the base.

Fortunately for Cleveland, they managed to prevail with a 2-1 win in the next inning thanks to a walk-off homer from Bobby Bradley.