The baseball world is in uproar after Taylor Walls of the Tampa Bay Rays was ejected from a Major League Baseball game for a seemingly innocuous helmet tap. Predictably, the internet is praising his “crash out.”
How did Taylor Walls “crash out” on the field?
The incident happened during a Tampa Bay matchup against the Houston Astros. In communicating his disagreement with a call to umpire Nic Lentz, Walls touched his own helmet. In a game rife with unwritten rules, this was enough for the shortstop to get tossed from the game.
In this particular case, it appears Lentz might’ve assumed Walls’ helmet gesture was referring to a minor league challenge signal. You can’t do that in the big league, so the movement could easily come off as rude.
Of course, Walls denied doing the movement intentionally. But it seems you don’t need to intend to disrespect an umpire in the game of baseball to have done so.
Taylor Walls taps his helmet to appeal the pitch call, gets ejected, and then goes off on the ump
byu/Knightbear49 inbaseball
What do viewers think of the helmet tap?
Over on Reddit’s r/baseball sub, MLB fans discussed whether this moment was inevitable.
One redditor explained, “A system for challenging ball/strike calls was tested in spring training this year (and is currently being used in the minors). The signal that a player wants to challenge the call is tapping the top of their head.”
A second wrote, “Tapping his helmet while staring at the umpire. Just tapping it probably wouldn’t have done it ,but doing it while maintaining eye contact is petty taunting.”
A third wrote, “I think they’d have tossed him anyway. MLB apparently warned players before the season that tapping your helmet to mimic an (automated ball-strike system) challenge would be an automatic ejection.”
Others were simply stunned by Walls’ reaction.
“Funniest part is him tapping his helmet, then yelling “I didn’t tap [expletive]!”” one commenter said.
“Bro fully committed to a full on crash out,” another said.
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