ARLINGTON, Texas — The YouTube clip of Phil Nevin’s first major-league managerial ejection had been paused at his request.
On the screen, he was in the middle of screaming at third-base umpire Bill Welke. The 52-year-old skipper of 14 days was pointing in every direction. His face was getting redder with anger, his body language growing tenser. The gesticulations were increasing. As Welke tried to de-escalate and walk away, Nevin wouldn’t let him get more than a few feet.
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Re-watching tape of that moment in Nevin’s office at Globe Life Field on Thursday, Nevin asked to freeze the video, fidgeting with the space bar as he quickly tried to point something out. At The Athletic’s request, Nevin had agreed to watch clips of his ejections and provide insight along the way. Think of it as a histrionics lesson.
Nevin knows he can look like a madman. But he also knows there’s a method to that madness.
“Did you see that,” Nevin asked. “Watch this. How do I pause this?”
Angels pitcher Andrew Wantz had balked. At least that was how Welke saw it.
Welke and Nevin go all the way back to Nevin’s playing days. And the then-soon-to-be-retired umpire knew that not much about Nevin had changed. He wasn’t easy to deal with, Welke said. But he was fair.
“And when you gave him a little bit of business back,” Welke said in a phone interview on Saturday, “he respected it.”
To this day, both Welke and Nevin remain entrenched in their beliefs about the call. Nevin said it wasn’t a balk, and that Welke knew it. Welke went back and watched the year-old play and still says it’s a balk. The point of contention was whether Wantz had fully stopped before going into his throwing motion. (You can see the sequence in its entirety here. The ejection takes place at about the 2:15 mark.)
It was a call that proved costly in the Angels’ 12-11 extra-inning loss on June 21, 2022 — perhaps best known for Shohei Ohtani’s eight RBIs. It extended an inning and let the Royals back into the game.
Nevin wanted the clip stopped because he knew what happened next was a perfect exemplification of how he might be an irate hothead. But an irate hothead that mixes both purpose and thought into his tantrums. Technically, home-plate umpire Nestor Ceja pulled the trigger on the ejection, but when it came time to argue Nevin took out his anger on the man who had made the original balk call.
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“What hurts me the most right here is that you’re the nicest mother—-er on this field,” Nevin said he told Welke. “And I’ve got to stand here and yell. This is my first f—ing ejection, and I’ve got to stand here and scream and yell in your face because that’s part of my f—ing job.”
Nevin apologized the next day. A gesture that Welke said at the time wasn’t necessary. Each man was doing what they had to do. After Welke retired following the 2022 season, Nevin called the league office to get Welke’s number.
He congratulated Welke on his 24 years with the league and reminded Welke of the significant role he played in Nevin’s managerial ledger.
“I saw him in spring training and we ran into each other after a game and it was cool to see him,” Welke said. “He goes, ‘Bill, you were my first argument, my first ejection.’ We joked about it. I have as fond memories about it as he does.”
Nevin’s reputation as an umpire’s enemy has only grown this year, amid fiery ejections in which Nevin has more than gotten his money’s worth. He’s been ejected seven times in his year in the big leagues and was suspended an additional 10 games last season for inciting the brawl against the Mariners.
“People don’t understand when you see these things happen. When you see these interactions happen on the field, it is in no way a personal shot,” Nevin said. “It’s part of the game.
“I can tell you, every single ejection I’ve had in the major leagues so far we either laughed about it the next day, we talked about it. Or I went in and apologized if I felt like I did something out of line. I’ve had umpires apologize to me. It’s part of it.”
He was ejected from the same game twice by two different umpires on April 19 at Yankee Stadium after Mike Trout was ruled to have swung on a pitch where he held his bat. Not literally, but both umpires motioned for his exit without realizing the other had done so. In Houston on June 1, Nevin blasted Stu Schuerwater’s low and inside strike call against Taylor Ward.
Phil Nevin ejected after the umpire makes a bad strike three call in a huge spot, a breakdown pic.twitter.com/pLf6FS2OGo
— Jomboy (@Jomboy_) June 6, 2023
After Ohtani struck out looking just more than a week later, Nevin and Phil Cuzzi had a lengthy argument. It ended with Nevin swiping the dirt in disgust to show Cuzzi the location of his botched call. Nevin’s head was bulging in anger.
“We know he’s for the players,” Angels star Mike Trout said. “The group in here knows that. He’s going to protect everybody in this clubhouse. When you go out there and see him fired up. See how passionate he is about his guys, it fires you up a little bit.”
Phil Nevin got his money's worth after the umpire called strike three on Shohei Ohtani in a huge spot pic.twitter.com/vk7WlSyU3V
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) June 11, 2023
Just last week, MLB Network ran a segment debating whether Nevin would lead the league in ejections.
This is his reputation. In three seasons as the Triple-A Reno manager, he was tossed 21 times. He’s been involved in not one, but two massive bench-clearing brawls as a manager. He incited a bench-clearing brawl as a player for the Angels in 1998, as detailed in the Los Angeles Times.
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Two months later, according to the Los Angeles Times, he was so angry about a strike call that he hurled his bat toward the dugout and ripped his jersey off.
To the outside world, this is Nevin. An unrepentant maniac.
But there is a purpose behind his lunacy. And a mutual respect between umpire and manager that transcends the expletive-filled, spittle-laced tirades that populate the internet.
He doesn’t want an automatic strike zone. He likes the back-and-forth. Many of these umpires he knows from coaching third base for six seasons. Some of the longest-tenured veterans were camped behind him as he learned to catch in the minor and major leagues in the middle of his career. There’s a rapport and a respect.
“He’s an old-school guy,” Welke said. “He’s adapted really well to the modern player and the modern game. But he’s got old-school roots. … Phil doesn’t forget those old days and those old relationships and those old challenges. He’ll give you a professional amount of respect because we go back to those old days. And he’ll listen to something we have to say. But as umpires, we understand he has a job to do.”
In May of 2021, Nevin contracted COVID-19. It was a life-threatening case because of a bacterial infection in his kidneys, as well as a staph infection. Nevin already deals with asthma. He spent time in the hospital.
Nevin was the third-base coach for the Yankees and was out for nearly a month fighting the infection. With an IV still attached to his arm, Nevin returned on June 4 of that season for a series with the Red Sox. He was borderline skinny having lost more than 20 pounds while battling the disease.
It’s not normally the third-base coach’s job to argue balls and strikes with the umpire. But after Rougned Odor was called out on a pitch that was outside, Nevin raced out of the dugout. This was two days after his return. Yankees manager Aaron Boone tried to hold him back. But there was no stopping Nevin.
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“We were struggling. I had just come back. People knew I was sick,” Nevin said. “I just wanted everybody to know, ‘I’m f—ing here and I care about you guys.’”
Nevin said he’s scaled back. There were times as a player and as a minor-league manager when he admittedly “lost (his) mind.” There were times in his career, he said, that he wished he didn’t have “the temper gene.”
He would have a hard time letting things go. He started elongated arguments that took on a life of their own. Nowadays, even amid his angriest ejections, Nevin said he can keep some perspective and an understanding that on the other end of his tirade is a person he often respects.
Nevin knows not to make derogatory comments. That doesn’t mean he won’t curse or criticize. It just means he’ll avoid over-the-top personal insults. Nevin even tries to avoid starting a sentence with the word “You.” And he’ll attempt to end it with a parting, light-hearted joke. Even if it comes in the form of him yelling.
Take, for example, renowned umpire Pat Hoberg. He umped a perfect game in the World Series. He had the Angels for a series and umped what Nevin said was a perfect game. Then, the next night, he missed one call that went against the Angels.
“I called him over, and I said, ‘It took you 14 innings to f— one up. Why did it have to be against us?’ He just laughed. I said, ‘You know that’s giving you a f—ing compliment, right?’ He goes, ‘ Yeah, I know. Thanks.’
“Some of the conversations that you see, yeah, is it a little more animated for the crowd, the players, the situation? Yes. Absolutely.”
“We all know he has our backs,” said closer Carlos Estévez, who noted that the Angels have felt victimized by several critical errors by umpires this season. “Even when the umpires are squeezing pitchers, you can hear him from the dugout always saying something. You’ve got to let them know they’ve got to do a better job.
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“That’s the way for the umpires to be aware. Like, ‘OK, I’ve got to be sharp. Because if not, Nevin is going to be on me the whole game.’”
Nevin’s mom, Terry Nevin, was concerned. After her son was ejected on June 10, she, like many others, sent him a text message to make sure he was OK.
“My mom was worried about my head exploding,” Nevin said.
It certainly looked as if it could. Nevin’s face was redder than his Angels hoodie. As his anger rose, it seemed his head would grow.
He didn’t want to get ejected. He knows when Ohtani argues balls and strikes he is usually incorrect. But when his two-way superstar does a finger wag, as he did that night, then the umpire probably got it wrong.
The irony is that Nevin didn’t react angrily at first. Not until Cuzzi threw him out. That’s when the Angels manager appeared and started screaming at the 32-year umping veteran. Another umpire intervened to unsuccessfully help cool tempers. There was legitimate anger between the two men. When the argument appeared over, it started right back up.
Nevin walked back into the dugout and out the other end. The argument lasted only two minutes or so. But as he trotted to the clubhouse in the depths of Angel Stadium, Nevin was exhausted.
“I walked up the stairs and down the tunnel,” Nevin said. “I felt like I needed to stop. I was out of breath. I’m like, ‘Jesus.’ Then I went right into the gym. I’m like, ‘I’ve got to get in better shape.'”
These types of back-and-forths are something of a lost art. Managers are more tempered. And instant replay has taken away many of the incentives to start an argument.
Boone, Nevin’s former boss, has one more ejection than Nevin this year. So too does David Bell, Nevin’s good friend. They all approach this aspect of the game with that same mindset. Sometimes protecting your team means creating a boogeyman and taking it to him — fair or not.
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It might be what defines Nevin to the outside world. The very clips he watched with nuanced enjoyment last week. But there’s more to him and more to these arguments than meets the eye. Even if that isn’t always clear.
“I don’t know. It doesn’t really bother me,” Nevin said. “I think people that are worried about outside perceptions of them are insecure people.
“The people that I care about, the people that I interact with every day … I think they know what kind of person I am. I can’t try to be somebody else.”
(Top photo of Phil Nevin yelling at first-base umpire Will Little: Brad Penner / USA Today)