With 34 years of experience, Jerry Layne is MLB’s longest-tenured active umpire. He’s been calling big league games since 1989 and during that time has surely dealt with his fair share of irate players and managers. In Wednesday night’s game between the Angels and Padres, that experience showed.
In bottom of the seventh inning, Angels manager Phil Nevin loudly voiced his displeasure with Layne’s strike zone. Layne let him vent a little bit but after Nevin’s argument continued, he was ejected.
That’s when Nevin decided to get his money’s worth. He charged out of the dugout and asked Layne, “Why the f--- did you throw me out?” as if it wasn’t immediately obvious.
Nevin continued to berate Layne for nearly a minute. And what did Layne do? He stood there expressionless and waited for Nevin to run out of steam.
Umpire Jerry Layne looks so unbothered by Phil Nevin screaming in his face pic.twitter.com/ZuipvO59SJ
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 6, 2023
Layne’s calm reaction to Nevin’s blowup is even more interesting because he isn’t always so collected behind the plate. After Astros shortstop Jeremy Peña questioned a call by Layne during a game in May, the umpire got right up in Peña’s face before the next pitch.
Nevin might have had a point about Layne’s umpiring, too. The ejection came shortly after a pitch at Manny Machado’s knees was called ball four to load the bases. Overall, Layne had a decent day behind the plate (calling 93% of pitches correctly) but the missed call in the seventh came back to bite the Angels as the Padres went on to score what proved to be the winning run later in the inning.
“It was a strike,” Nevin said after the game. “There was a pitch earlier in the at-bat that was a strike. Just blatant misses. I don’t get that part of it [especially] in a big spot in the game. That’s strike three and we get a ground ball and the inning should be over. I never said he cost us the game but we could still be playing.”
