In case you missed it, Sunday was wild.
With three ejections, a game-tying home run in the ninth and a season-saving catch to follow it, it all ended for the Clemson baseball team in heartbreak: a loss to end their season.
After the Florida Gators broke the hearts of thousands of Clemson fans attending the contest at Doug Kingsmore Stadium, there was another catch: head coach Erik Bakich would not be available for media availability because he was thrown out of the game.
But three days later, Bakich would be able to speak on what occurred.
He began to talk about the 13th inning, where the chaos would reach its spark, when he and assistant coach Jack Leggett were ejected following the Alden Mathes bat spike celebration, which put Clemson up 10-9 in the top of the 13th inning.
Following the homer, the umpires met up in front of the Clemson dugout to talk, which Bakich knew it was if they were going to eject Mathes from the game for an excessive celebration.
“You could tell it was not about anything other than the decision on whether they would eject Alden,” he said, “which means he’s not only out of that game but the next one.”
Much of the dugout, according to Bakich, was confused because in the first inning of the contest, pitcher and designated hitter Jac Caglianone hit a home run off of pitcher Tristan Smith and spiked his bat in celebration as well. Caglianone received no warning in the game.
The Clemson head coach continues the story with Jack Leggett, who continued to speak to the umpires about their meeting, which incited umpire Billy Van Raaphorst to throw Leggett out of the game.
“At one point, the one umpire [Van Raaphorst], looked at Coach Leggett, as [he] was animated and saying what he was saying, and he just tossed him,” Bakich retells.
Bakich said that only Leggett was ejected for arguing about the celebration with the umpires, which was because he walked out onto the field.
“‘We are not ejecting Mathes, but we are ejecting Jack Leggett and he is suspended,” Bakich recalled what Van Raaphorst told him. “‘He is suspended because he’s not allowed to come out on the field.’”
After that, Bakich looked to keep the hopes up of the crowd by getting them excited that they were not going to give up following the ejection, which caused the head coach’s ejection.
“I did incite the crowd a little bit at that point, Coach Leggett didn’t really do much.” he explained. “The crowd was awesome like they always are.”
Bakich then retold what Van Raaphorst told him following Leggett’s ejection.
“‘And also because you incited the crowd, you are ejected too,’ and then walked away,” he said. “Well, sorry, but the competitor in me is not going to tuck tail and turn around and go. So I started to argue more.”
The head coach said that because of his procession to argue more, he was given a two-game suspension, which will go into the beginning of the 2025 season. Clemson has spoke with the ACC in terms of appealing it, but Bakich will most likely serve the suspension.
Bakich’s reason for his continuation of arguing was because he did not get a great explanation about the umpiring crew for their decision to eject him.
“I want an explanation, face-to-face, man-to-man, and I couldn’t get that,” he said. “It’s just too bad, it’s unfortunate because a lot of good officiators out there, they are able to separate their personality and personal emotion from being able to just officiate.”
“I felt like there was some personality and personal emotion that got in there,” he added.
When asked about if he made the right decision, Bakich responded with how he has always been interacting with the crowd as a coach.
“If grounds for ejection are a coach inciting the crowd, then I might get ejected an awful lot,” he explained. “I like engaging with our crowd. I do it all the time with two strikes and two outs, I tell them to get up, I always do that with the crowd. I love that DKS is our tenth man, it feels like they are on our team and I am always going to interact with our crowd, sorry not sorry, I’m going to keep doing that.”
Bakich also spoke about the ejection of Jack Crighton, who was thrown out at the top of the second inning following an altercation between Caglianone and Nolan Nawrocki on the first base path.
“I wouldn’t put the blame on anything other than the way the rule is written,” Bakich said. “I understand the intent of the rule, but sometimes impact does not match intent.”
The rule, which says if a runner leaves their respective base to join an alternation, they are ejected. However, Crighton was on second base and rounding home after Nawrocki’s swinging bunt went to first base.
With the inning being over, and Crighton going in the general direction of the altercation, Bakich believes that there was confusion with the call.
“I didn’t understand that, of all the people that could get ejected on the field, why Jack Crighton was the one,” he said.
The Clemson head coach believed that either Nawrocki or Caglianone, or both, were the only possibility for an ejection.
Despite the controversy, ejections and heartbreak that occurred on Sunday in the Upstate, Bakich has an “it is what it is” mentality on the events.
“We are not that bad that we need every call,” he explained, “but when you start hucking players, whether it’s Jack Crighton, Cam Cannarella last year or potentially Alden Mathes and then a couple of coaches and staff members, it’s not what everybody wants.”
The head coach has his sights on next season already in terms of getting back to playing at Doug Kingsmore Stadium, with hopes to continue the recent success that the Tigers have been having since his hiring in 2022.
“This crowd is going to be back, and we are going to be back and we are going to keep being the tenth man together because this community is awesome,” Bakich said.
