There was a lot of reaction early this week following the display put on by Asheville Tourists manager Joe Mikulik over the weekend.  If you missed it, Mikulik threw one of the best on-field tantrums in recent memory: reenacting the play that led to his performance, tearing a base from the ground and tossing it into the outfield, hurling some bats on the field, covering home plate with dirt (then apparently "reconsidering" and emptying a bottle of water onto it) and kicking dirt onto the umpire.  It was highly impressive and earned him a seven day vacation and $1,000 fine.

Lest there be any doubt, I personally consider a good managerial fuse-blowing to be one of the finest moments that can take place in a baseball game.  My greatest critique of former Red Sox manager Grady Little was not the questionable handling of his pitching staff but the fact that every argument he entered with an umpire consisted of jogging onto the field, mildly arguing for a few minutes, then meekly returning to the dugout.  I don't think he ever even took his hat off or kicked dirt on home plate.  It was a waste of a good opportunity.

The greatest on-field "nutties" I ever witnessed came within the context of an epic three-game weekend series during the 2003 season.  The star was former Red Sox third baseman/manager and current Nashua Pride skipper Butch Hobson.  Hobson was already known around the league as an imaginative protester: during the 2000 season, he had pulled a base from the ground, autographed it and handed it to a young fan as a souvenir before leaving the field.  He knew how to make the most of his time.

On the Friday night of the aforementioned weekend series, the Pride were trailing the Pennsylvania Road Warriors 2-1 in the bottom of the eighth inning when first baseman D.J. Boston (brother of former major leaguer Daryl Boston, for all you trivia buffs out there) crushed a shot just inside the left-field foul pole.  The crowd erupted, Nashua's dugout exploded and the home plate umpire signaled "foul ball".  Enter Hobson, tearing down the line from his position in the third base coach's box to confront the umpire over the obviously blown call.  He argued for a few minutes to no avail before making his move: leaving the umpires in his wake, he stalked all the way down the left-field line, all 307 feet, where he proceeded to climb the five-foot brick wall and provide a visual demonstration of the ball's trajectory.  That did it; Hobson was allowed to enjoy the rest of the game from the manager's (which his team ended up losing 2-1), but he had made his point.

Never did we suspect that this was only the beginning.  As luck would have it, two nights later another Pride player launched a drive down the left-field line.  Again the umpire called the shot foul (although this was a far better call).  This time, however, Hobson wasn't taking any chances, planting himself squarely on the foul line to see for himself where the ball was headed.  The home plate umpire took exception to the challenge on his authority, heading down the line to give Butch an earful. 

In nearly two full seasons working with the Nashua Pride, I dealt with Butch Hobson quite a bit, mostly to schedule appearances and interviews, and he was legitimately one of the friendliest and accommodating people I have ever met.  Unless, we quickly learned, you are an approaching umpire; in that case, he gets a little loco.  When that umpire took off after him, they might as well have rung a bell over the PA system, because it was on.

The first few moments were standard fare, with Hobson's face getting redder and redder and the equally heated umpire proving a most worthy opponent.  Then it jumped up a notch.  After heading back up the line to home plate (and possibly kicking a little dirt on it - my memory fails me on that particular point, but I'd like to think Butch mixed an old standby into this original performance), Hobson proceeded to do an impromptu strip tease, whipping off his hat, uniform shirt and undershirt and slamming them all three down on the plate before walking defiantly heading off the field, bare-chested and proud.

An umpire-manager standoff is like any fight: there is usually a clear winner and a clear loser.  In both arguments described above, Butch Hobson was the clear winner, scoring impressive virtual knockouts over a pair of arbiters.  He was only able to do so, however, by leaving everything he had on the field (except his pants) and refusing to back off until he was finished.  Too many managers these days don't go the distance, hesitating to go further than some heated yelling and occasional dirt kicking.  Where's Leo Durocher, Eddie Stanky or Earl Weaver when we need them?

Don't be totally misled by the doom and gloom; it's not too late for the irate manager to make a glorious comeback into the baseball world.  As long as the likes of Butch Hobson, Joe Mikulik (who needs to remember that bats are not javelins - he could have seriously injured someone the way he was tossing those on the field) and Jim Leyland are patrolling dugouts, there's still hope.