The MLB rulebook does not have any guidelines specifying how a player should wear his hat. Yet, home plate umpire Doug Eddings chose to stop play and ask St. Louis Cardinals rookie reliever Hancel Rincon to straighten his hat in the middle of his outing. Manager Oliver Marmol did not appreciate Eddings’ actions, nor did the fans. Now, a tennis legend has given her two cents on the umpire, intensifying the tilted-hat saga that broke out at 5,200 feet above sea level.

“This ump has a grudge…” Martina Navratilova, a nine-time Wimbledon champion, wrote on X.

Navratilova posted a clip of the argument that subsequently broke out between Marmol and Eddings after the umpire took issue with Rincon’s hat.

During the series opener at Coors Field, the home of the Colorado Rockies, 24-year-old Rincon debuted for the Cardinals. Marmol gave him the ball in the sixth inning with the Cardinals leading 4-1. A run-scoring wild pitch later, the lead was down to 4-2 with Cole Carrigg at the plate. Eddings chose that moment to make an issue of Rincon’s tilted hat. He even called time to make sure that the rookie straightened his hat first.

Rincon fixed it without argument and got back to pitching. He allowed a solo, inside-the-park home run to Carrigg on a 3-1 count and followed it up with a single to Connor Norby. Though the Cardinals had already pulled Rincon and sent Justin Bruihl, Marmol was not about to let Eddings go this easily. The Cardinals’ manager protested as expletives flew.

“Fix your hat? Fix your hat?” The broadcast cameras caught a furious Marmol yelling at Eddings, per Jomboy Media on X. “You need to grow the f*** up. He’s a rookie. You kidding me about his f *** hat? You need to grow the f*** up.”

As Marmol continued to confront the umpire during Bruihl’s warm-ups, he earned a pitch clock violation. The manager was also subsequently ejected following his protest.

“Some words were exchanged there. I thought it was pretty embarrassing on his [Doug Eddings] end,” Marmol said postgame, per Foul Territory. “We have a kid making his debut, and in between an at-bat, he tells them that he needs to fix his hat, and ‘a kid’s not going to wear a hat like that on my field.’ So, last I checked, this is Coors Field. So I took issue with it.”

Marmol pointed out plenty of baseball legends, including Dontrelle Willis, CC Sabathia, and Pedro Strop, who have worn their hats tilted. He called Eddings’ actions a “power-hungry move” postgame.

Following the game, Eddings defended himself. He revealed that the Rockies catcher Hunter Goodman had been the one to point out the crooked hat. According to Eddings, Goodman had asked, “Hey, can he wear his hat like that?”

So, the umpire had no choice but to ask the rookie to fix his hat, as it had become a potential distraction for other players.

“I guess it’s a little unwritten rule,” Eddings told MLB.com postgame. “They can’t wear [their cap] backwards like a catcher. If it’s a distraction, like anything on the field, like a glove or something, and someone makes you aware of it, then you kind of address that.”

Doug Eddings was already facing flak for his actions, but a recent development has put the umpire under even more scrutiny. Hunter Goodman has come out and denied Eddings’ claims.

“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.”

The hat-gate appears to be only intensifying. It reached new heights when other Cardinals players wore their hats tilted on Saturday in solidarity with Rincon. From now on, MLB umpires will think twice before enforcing any “unwritten” rules in baseball.