St. Louis Cardinals rookie Hancel Rincon wore his hat askew again on Saturday. But this time, the home plate umpire did not launch into another unwarranted “how to wear a hat” lesson in the middle of his outing. Instead, Doug Eddings apologized for his over-the-top actions during the series opener. However, the apology reportedly was not entirely his own doing. The league apparently played a bigger role in prompting the apology than Eddings’ own remorse.
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“The apology umpire Doug Eddings issued to St. Louis Cardinals rookie reliever Hancel Rincon on Saturday came after Major League Baseball communicated to the veteran ump that he acted inappropriately the previous night when he told the rookie reliever to straighten his cap,” Ken Rosenthal reported for The Athletic.
“…according to two people briefed on the matter who spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to speak publicly, the league viewed Eddings’ admonishment of Rincon as going too far.”
MLB does not have any rules on how a player should wear his hat. Yet Eddings went so far as to stop play to admonish Rincon about his tilted hat. He asked Cardinals catcher Leo Bernal, another rookie, to tell Rincon to straighten his hat on Friday. It was the same day the 24-year-old reliever debuted for the Cardinals in the sixth inning.
During the series opener, Rincon did not argue with Eddings’ request. Though he did not understand why he was told to do so, Rincon fixed his hat and went back to pitching. But the Cardinals manager, Oliver Marmol, took exception to Eddings’ actions. He protested vehemently, highlighting how out of line Eddings was.
“I had an issue with Doug,” he clarified after the game. “Just Doug. He took it upon himself to tell our rookie pitcher the kid’s ‘not going to wear his hat on my field that way.’ You got Dontrelle Willis, CC Sabathia, Pedro Strop — plenty of guys that have worn it way more tilted. I have an issue with that. That’s just a power-hungry move, in my opinion.”
Marmol was in Eddings’ face, arguing as the Cardinals sent Justin Bruihl and pulled Rincon. The manager continued through Bruihl’s warm-ups, eventually earning Bruihl a pitch clock violation. As Marmol kept up, his protests earned him an ejection from the game.
After the game, Eddings claimed that the Rockies’ Hunter Goodman had pointed out Rincon’s tilted hat. Goodman had apparently asked, “Hey, can he wear his hat like that?” So Eddings had asked Rincon to fix his crooked hat because it was distracting other players.
MLB has given umpires broad discretion to determine whether a player’s actions are distracting. Eddings claimed he acted on those grounds on Friday, but Goodman denied ever telling Eddings anything about Rincon’s hat. The league, too, found Eddings’ actions unnecessary.
“I never once mentioned the hat,” Goodman said, per MLB.com. “It doesn’t matter who’s pitching. I don’t care how they wear the hat. I’m trying to find out where the ball is coming out, and I’m trying to worry about what I’m doing in the box. I’m not worried about how his hat looks.”
Goodman’s claims only intensified the controversy surrounding Rincon’s tilted hat and Eddings’ subsequent actions, but the home plate umpire took a step forward to leave the drama behind on Saturday.
He stopped Rincon in the middle of the first inning when he and the Cardinals’ relievers headed to the bullpen. The reliever took their brief interaction as an apology, apparently closing the chapter for good.
Hancel Rincon on Doug Eddings’ apology
The relief pitcher is a native of the Dominican Republic. Rincon’s first language is Spanish. So he did not understand everything Eddings said on Saturday without an interpreter’s help, but the reliever felt the umpire was trying to apologize for his previous actions.
“I understood a couple words, and it looked like he apologized to me for what happened last night,” Rincon said, per The Athletic. “He also told me good luck with the rest of my career as a big leaguer. I told him, don’t worry, it’s nothing personal, and everything stays here.”
Rincon completed an inning on Saturday. Across his 30-pitch outing, Rincon allowed 4 earned runs on 2 hits. He issued a walk and struck out one. Ahead of Sunday’s game, the Cardinals have optioned him to Triple-A Memphis.
The saga around the tilted hat shows that such grey areas of MLB are better left untouched.