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Rangers’ Skip Schumaker’s ‘God Bless America’ pause during tirade still draws attention
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- Rangers’ Skip Schumaker’s ‘God Bless America’ pause during tirade still draws attention
Rangers' Skip Schumaker's 'God Bless America' pause during tirade still draws attention originally appeared on The Sporting News . Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here .
Baseball fights usually don't stop until someone gets thrown out, but Texas Rangers manager Skip Schumaker found a hilarious loophole on Sunday.
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During the 7th inning, with the Rangers trailing the Astros 7-3, the umpire blew a critical strikeout call on a pitch well below the strike zone. Since the Rangers had no replay challenges left, Schumaker stormed out of the dugout and started absolutely screaming.
Right in the middle of the verbal moment, the stadium speakers started playing "God Bless America." And then the broadcast camera caught both Schumaker and the umpire pausing mid-sentence, taking off their hats, and standing still for the song.
The exact second the music stopped, they put their caps back on and went right back to screaming at each other until Schumaker was ejected.
Yahoo Sports called it the classiest manager ejection of the season, pointing out that the blowup happened at a brutal time for a Rangers club desperately fighting for the AL West or a wild-card spot. The patriotic timeout didn't change the outcome, though.
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The Astros held onto their lead to close out a 7-3 victory, completing a big three-game sweep fueled by starting pitcher Peter Lambert , who carried a perfect game into the fifth inning and finished with eight strikeouts. Meanwhile, the loss dropped Texas to 55-57 on the year, leaving them 2.5 games behind the first-place Astros in the division race.
Rangers hitting coach Justin Viele actually got thrown out earlier in the game, too. That means Texas managed to lose a coach, their manager, the game, and first place all in a single afternoon. Things aren't going to get any easier for them, either.
They have to turn right around to play a high-stakes series against the San Francisco Giants tomorrow. With the suspension keeping Schumaker out of the dugout, the Rangers will have to rely on their remaining coaching staff to step up and run the game.
