Twins manager Baldelli ejected after Yankees' rosin controversy

NEW YORK — Manager Rocco Baldelli was ejected during the Minnesota Twins' 6-1 loss to the New York Yankees on Saturday after an excess rosin controversy concerning starting pitcher Domingo Germán.

First-base umpire and crew chief James Hoye had a lengthy conversation with Germán during an extensive hand and glove checkup in the middle of the third inning. Hoye explained after the game that Germán appeared to have excess rosin on his hands, and he asked him to clean them after the top of the third.

Germán came back out in the top of the fourth inning and Hoye still noticed tackiness.

«I checked them again, and I go, 'I just told you to clean this up,' and there was still some tackiness on his pinkie,» Hoye explained. «Then the [Yankees] interpreter came out, and [New York manager Aaron] Boone came out, and said, the interpreter goes, 'He washed his hands. He cleaned it up.' And I go, 'Yeah, but it's still tacky.'»

Hoye said that at that point, according to procedure, he had another crew member, second-base umpire D.J. Reyburn, check on whether Germán was using a sticky foreign substance that could potentially affect the ball flight or if the tackiness was derived from using a rosin bag.

«We all agreed that it's no,» Hoye said of Germán using a foreign substance. «In that situation, it was more of a directive by me that he didn't clean it all the way up. It wasn't a foreign substance that affected the flight of the ball. And then I went over to Rocco. And he felt like this was a stand he needed to make and so he was ejected from the game.»

Hoye added: «In that situation there, it was like, this is not an ejectable offense because we didn't feel it rose to the foreign substance standard of affecting the flight, affecting