This has got to be a first. A baseball umpire ejected a ballpark participant for publicly showing him up. Not a manager. Not a player. But a college intern who happened to be the organist for the Daytona Cubs, a single A affiliate of the Chicago Cubs, in Daytona Beach, Florida.
Derek Dye, a college kid from the University of Illinois had been doing an internship with the minor league club and was given a chance to play organ music for the game. After a questionable call at first base went against the home town team, Dye decided to take matters into his own hands.
Literally.
He cranked up the stadium organ and started playing Three Blind Mice. No words, just a few simple chords. And it took him only 5 seconds to get tossed out of the game by the home plate ump. Watch it here:
Umpire ejects college intern for choice of music
You can hear the umpire scream, “you’re gone”, as he points to the organist. Then the man in blue tells the field crew, “The guy just played ‘Three Blind Mice’. Turn the sound down for the rest of the night.”
And with that, Derek Dye was forced to exit the music booth.
“I took my hat off, scratched my head,” said Dye.
“I couldn’t believe he was talking to me. Not the manager, not the guy arguing the call, but the guy pressing the button on the music.”
A valuable life lesson perhaps for the college intern who learned that music can be more powerful than words. At least he didn’t play, “We won’t get fooled again.”
