Twitter sounds off after Tony Vitello tosses bat towards Auburn after bat flip

Tennessee baseball head coach Tony Vitello is catching flak online with his response to an Auburn Tigers’ bat that was flipped in his team’s direction.

The Tennessee baseball team is known for hitting a lot of home runs and having all sorts of fun. The Vols regularly celebrate and make it clear that they are proud of how they’re performing. Of course, when your team celebrates and is known for big gestures and bat flips, you should probably expect that in return when an opponent has success.

Tony Vitello, the head coach for Tennessee, had an interesting response after the Auburn Tigers celebrated a go-ahead home run in the top of the ninth inning.

As with many home runs, a bat ended up being flipped. Said bat ended up bouncing right up to the Vols’ dugout and Vitello promptly jumped out to snag it and subsequently tossed it right back towards Auburn players who were celebrating.

Check out the video for yourself.

https://twitter.com/MrMatthewCFB/status/1520586175400058884?s=20&t=cdLV41lavN9Xz6LEqiz8dw

Tennessee baseball: Vols’ head coach Tony Vitello tosses bat toward Auburn after Tigers’ bat flip celebration

Vitello was asked about the incident in a postgame press conference and he seemingly tried to play the whole thing off.

Of course, it seems like most Vols fans aren’t too mad about the whole incident, but it’s not exactly great timing for the Tennessee coach as it wasn’t that long ago that he returned from a suspension after he bumped into an umpire during an argument.

So while there are folks in Knoxville who don’t mind all of this, other college baseball fanbases don’t seem as fond about some of this. With this video going around on Twitter, people had plenty to say and most really didn’t hold back at all.

This whole deal really isn’t a good look for the Vols, regardless of Vitello’s intent in that moment.

From the video, it’s hard to truly say what he was meaning to do, but people online are going to assume that he’s incensed about a home run celebration, which would be incredibly hypocritical given incidents like this, this, or this.

Auburn managed to win the game thanks in large part to that home run.

The series is now tied up at 1-1. It’ll be fascinating to see how game 3 between these two unfolds.

For more NCAA softball or NCAA baseball news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage by FanSided click the links and bookmark these pages.