Buffalo Bisons (Triple-A Mets) manager Wally Backman was suspended three games by the International League for his confrontation with Syracuse Chiefs (Triple-A Nationals) manager Tony Beasley on Friday.
The two nearly came to blows over Backman’s belief that Syracuse was stealing signs. The Bisons won the game 13-7 even though Backman was ejected in the fourth.
Answering questions after the game, Backman explained why he was so upset.
“The one thing that I would say is don’t insult my intelligence in the game,” Backman said, per the Buffalo News. “I watched it happen in the series before where players were giving location to hitters. And don’t insult my intelligence. I’ve played the game way too long. I know everything about the game. That’s what they’ve been doing. That’s what they’ve done. We put a stop to it the last time we played and I had to say something tonight. It was just. The game of baseball has some integrity to it, especially in the United States. It might not be that way in other places at times, but here we have some integrity in the game and I expect the game to be played fair and the right way.
“I watched the catcher do it twice. I watched other guys do it. There’s a couple of guys that don’t do it. I don’t play that game. There’s integrity to the game. When those things happen, I’ve got a problem with it. I won’t let somebody play me into being stupid at all. I know the game very well. I know all the things you can do in the game to show location, to show signs and all those type of things. And if you get caught, you stop. If you don’t stop then we have a problem. And that’s where we had a problem tonight.”
Backman is notorious for his profanity-laced blowups, so Friday’s ejection was tame by his standards. Below are several videos of Backman getting ejected in the past.
From June 2007 when Backman was managing the independent South Georgia Peanuts (language extremely NSFW):
Another incident from when Backman was managing the South Georgia Peanuts. (Warning: language is extremely NSFW and offensive)
