The bat flip has always been a contentious thing in baseball. Pitchers get mad at themselves for throwing bad pitches, then get really peeved at batters for reminding them of it with celebratory bat flips. Sometimes, whole teams take offense to a batter admiring their handiwork, and things get really chippy on the field, like Jose Bautista‘s legendary series-clinching home run, stare, and of course, the bat flip heard around the world.
Yesterday, Miami University advanced to the College World Series with a 9-3 victory over Boston College. They were helped along big time by chronic bat-flipper Edgar Michelangeli, who smacked a grand slam over the left field fence in the bottom of the 7th inning, with his team up just two runs at the time. Michelangeli stopped to admire his home run, flipped the bat, and held the hand he used to flip the bat up in the air until he was darn near finished rounding the bases.
Before he finished rounding the bases, he executed two huge jumping chest pumps in front of BC’s catcher, and proceeded to high-five gleeful fans through the protective netting behind home plate before he trotted back to the dugout with his teammates, all of whom had run out onto the field for a bit of a premature celebration.
Which of these things didn’t sit well with Boston College? Just pick one. It wasn’t long before Miami’s bench wasn’t the only one that had cleared, and things got, as we mentioned before, quite chippy on the diamond. Luckily for both teams, nothing glaringly physical ensued. Just feelings bubbling over.
Watch the whole incident unfold right here.