Every baseball fan has seen players throw tantrums from time to time. One player on an independent league team from North Dakota wasn't so North Dakota-Nice with his antics.

Brennan Metzger, an outfielder for the Fargo-Moorhead RedHawks, was not happy with a called third strike on him from home plate umpire Mike Jarboe. The sequence of events that followed was quite unorthodox, even by baseball tantrum-standards. Metzger's meltdown quickly made the rounds online and on national television, getting picked up by the likes of Sports Illustrated, Yahoo and ESPN.

Let's break down what exactly happened:

  • Metzger gets punched out on a called third strike. He has a good reason for being angry. The ball looked outside and he's up in a key moment late in the game, tied 3-3 in the bottom of the 7th with a runner on third.
  • After his initial shock of the call, Metzger comes back and gives Jarboe an earful. First off, the manager was out there quick after the call. It's like he knew Metzger had a short fuse. It's unfortunate that we can't exactly tell what it was that made Jarboe toss Metzger fairly quickly after their initial exchange. Metzger then comes rushing back, mouthing Jarboe for a solid 18 seconds. You have to give props to his manager for a good fundamental box out in the process of holding Metzger back.
  • Metzger had a plan. As soon as he went back to the dugout, he knew exactly where he was going as he made a beeline for the trash can. The question is, what would he do after that? Was he going to dump it on home plate? On the field of play? Nope, he places it right behind home plate and appears to tell Jarboe, "Go to your home."

It's not every day that a public baseball temper tantrum comes from someone on a team from North Dakota, but this was certainly one of the more bizarre tantrums we've seen in recent years. We've all seen the highlight of George Brett and the pine-tar incident, Lou Pinella with his many tirades throughout the years, and for good measure, here's a video with a compilation of several temper tantrums in baseball. You may notice that a good majority of them come from noted hot-head Bryce Harper. Enjoy...

 

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