Addendum: There Is No Joking On The Baseball Field

There are three things you don’t talk about with a home plate umpire: religion, politics, and his pre-game stretching routine. Russell Martin learned that the hard way:

“Martin thought he was cracking a harmless joke at home-plate umpire Paul Schrieber in the fifth inning Monday night, but the ump didn’t find much humor in it, ejecting the catcher from the game.

“I asked if he had stretched before the game; then I asked him again,” Martin said. “He looked at me kind of funny and I said, ‘I feel like you’re kind of tight right now.’ He tossed me…”I didn’t say it in a way that was condescending,” Martin said. “I was trying to loosen things up a little bit because I felt like he wasn’t really having a good time, and so he threw me out. I didn’t say he (stunk). I didn’t say he was the worst umpire in the league. I didn’t say any of that stuff. I just made a joke and he then threw me out, no warning, nothing. Gone. I got thrown out for having a sense of humor.”

If only Martin knew that Schrieber was a fan of absurdist British comedy, this whole situation could have been avoided.