Hancel Rincon wasn’t your typical hyped first-rounder who arrived in St. Louis and flipped the script overnight. After grinding through the minor leagues for years and finally improving his changeup, the Cardinals selected his contract on September 1. Then, on September 4, he made his debut at 5,200 feet, and what followed was sheer chaos.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
With the rookie still on the mound, Doug Eddings asked him to straighten his crooked hat. The rookie obliged as play stopped. But if only the home plate umpire had an idea of the fire that was about to come his way… A few days have passed since Doug Eddings’ bizarre confrontation, but the controversy is still fresh, and a former Cardinals pitcher is now adding his voice to the criticism.
“If there’s a situation where MLB can reel this in and show a little bit of support for the players and work together, and say, ‘Doug, you messed up.’ When players mess up, there’s a penalty. There needs to be a penalty here,” Kyle Gibson said on the Cardinals Territory podcast on September 9.
Rincon made his MLB debut on September 4 against the Colorado Rockies, entering the game in the sixth inning with the Cardinals leading 4-1. He surrendered three runs without retiring a single batter. During the inning, Eddings paused the game and asked him to straighten his hat. The 24-year-old was wearing it at a slight angle, which didn’t sit well with the plate umpire. He told the rookie that he was “not going to wear his hat on my field that way.”
This was the start of a very long, unforgettable saga for Eddings.
The umpire initially stated that Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman had asked, “Hey, can he wear his hat like that?” The Cardinals reliever obliged the umpire’s instruction and straightened his hat, but his manager didn’t take it so lightly.
He started arguing with the umpire, which made it worse.
“Fix your hat? Fix your hat?” Marmol kept yelling. “You need to grow the f*** up. He’s a rookie. You kidding me about his f *** hat?
The umpire ultimately tossed him from the game, but that couldn’t silence the manager.
“I had an issue with Doug. Just Doug,” he said post-game, as per MLB.com. “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.”
Many thought that it would end with the Cardinals’ 7-6 win in that game, but things only got worse.
Doug Eddings faced more questions over his hat call
Later, Hunter Goodman told the media that he never said a single thing about Rincon’s cap. The “unwritten rule” Eddings had imposed on the young pitcher didn’t sit well with the baseball community, and Goodman’s admission took their frustration to a whole new level.
Several fans, and not just the Cardinals loyalists, criticized the umpire’s move and urged strict action against him. Social media was flooded with comments bashing Eddings, with legends like Martina Navratilova taking to X to criticize the official. She uploaded the clip and captioned it:
“This ump has a grudge.”
The players, on the other hand, didn’t want to let it slide so easily. Several players from both dugouts were seen wearing their caps tilted in support of the youngster and to protest the umpire’s unusual decision.
Before the start of the game the next day, Eddings was seen having a brief conversation with Rincon. The two nodded, and the Cardinals broadcast booth said that he apologized to the rookie.
However, it was later revealed that the apology wasn’t entirely his own doing. According to Ken Rosenthal of ESPN, Major League Baseball had communicated with the umpire after the incident and told Eddings that he had “acted inappropriately the previous night when he told the Cardinals rookie reliever to straighten his cap.”
Although it somewhat reduced the noise, it wasn’t completely gone. In the meantime, Rincon suffered another rough outing as he allowed 2 hits and 4 runs over just one inning. The Cardinals optioned him to Triple-A Memphis on September 6.
While his performance had little to do with the entire controversy, many believed that it would be over. But Gibson’s recent statement proves that there are still people who can’t accept the fact that the umpire can get away with just an apology after implementing a bizarre rule. And many like him still want MLB to take more serious action against such behavior.