BOSTON — Like most everyone else who watched the highlights, Red Sox manager Alex Cora found himself highly entertained by Aaron Boone’s on-field antics Monday night in Chicago.
Boone, the manger of the New York Yankees, was unhappy with the strike zone of home plate umpire Laz Diaz in a 2-1 loss to the White Sox at Guaranteed Rate Field and finally reached his breaking point in the eighth inning. When Diaz rang up rookie shortstop Anthony Volpe on a called third strike, Boone exploded and was summarily ejected.
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Intent on getting his money’s worth, Boone came out of the dugout and proceeded to argue with, then directly mock, the umpire. Boone drew a line in the dirt near home plate, presumably to show Diaz the pitches he had missed.
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Not satisfied with his show-and-tell project, Boone proceeded to imitate Diaz’s distinctive strike call in which the umpire looks like he is starting a lawnmower, pulling on an invisible cord.
“I talked to him today,” said a chuckling Cora, shaking his head. “I can’t…I get upset and all that (with umpires), but he’s so good at that, you know, the impersonations…He’s awesome, he’s awesome. That was really good. I told him the hips were really good. He got it right. He friggin’ got it right. I’d call Mike (Hill, senior vice president of on-field operations for MLB) and I’ll probably pay half the fine. ‘We got it, we got it.’
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“(Boone) was embarrassed. The thing is, you have kids. In my situation, if I do something like that, my daughter is 20….yeah. And by the way, it was a strike. I don’t know what (Boone) was complaining about. That was good, that was good.”
Cora has known Diaz for some 30 years. When Cora played at the University of Miami, the school would have Diaz umpire the rivalry fames between Miami and the University of Florida.
“So the strike zone was a little bit bigger,” cracked Cora. “So I’ve known him since 1993. And in (2017) with Houston, he threw me out as a bench coach.”
Still, Cora acknowledged that when it comes to on-field arguments with umpires, he isn’t in the same league as his one-time colleague at ESPN. For the record, Boone leads all AL umpires with six ejections this season.
“That was good yesterday, that was good,” said Cora. “He did a good job, Booney did. And Laz was into it, too.”
