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Clemson head coach Erik Bakich (Tom Priddy/Four Seam Images)
Clemson head coach Erik Bakich will kick off his third year atop the Tigers program away from the stadium altogether as he serves a two-game suspension.
Bakich will trade the dugout for his hotel room on Friday and Saturday at the Shriners Children’s College Showdown in Globe Life Park, helping to broadcast his team’s games against Oklahoma State and Arizona from an alternative location thanks to NCAA rules keeping him from even stepping foot in the ballpark.
The 47-year-old coach could only quip about the legislation.
“I can’t get ejected on the radio,” Bakich said Tuesday. “I’ll be commentating to my best ability [on the Clemson Athletic Network]. I’ll be on the radio doing my very best from there. Weird, kind of dumb rule… But, whatever, we’ll make the best of it.
“We got denied to be in the radio booth. I’ll have to do it from the hotel room.”
Bakich’s season-opening suspension stems from his 13th-inning ejection from Game 2 of the 2024 Clemson Super Regional against Florida.
After blasting a home run to give his team a late lead, Clemson batter Alden Mathes celebrated with an emphatic bat slam, which prompted an umpire meeting and eventually led to the ejection of former Clemson head coach and current director of program development Jack Leggett, who was cited for yelling and gesturing at the crew from the field.
According to crew chief Billy Van Raaphorst, Bakich then failed to return to his dugout despite being told to and was “raising his arms over his head while facing the crowd to clearly incite the crowd.” He was ejected and issued a two-game suspension.
Clemson assistant Nick Schnabel will serve as acting manager in Bakich’s absence.
“The team’s in very good hands,” Bakich said of his longtime assistant. “He could’ve been a head coach a million times over. He’s turned down multiple head coaching jobs. As soon as he does take that jump, he’ll be one of the better head coaches in the country. Feel really good about him running the team.”
Bakich and Leggett weren’t the only ones ejected from that contest.
A second-inning shoving match between Jac Caglianone and Nolan Nawrocki, who collided at first base after the latter hit a dribbler up the line and the former stepped into the runner’s lane to make a tag, led to the ejection of Clemson’s Jack Crighton, who had been on base.
Umpires claimed that Crighton “left his position on the field” to engage in the dust up, which was a violation of a hard-to-interpret NCAA ruling.
Crighton’s ejection, as well as a similar situation in which 11 players were ejected from an April 6 SEC game between Georgia and Mississippi State, led to a rule change this offseason that states that players who leave their position on the field amid a scuffle will not be ejected if they “are judged not to be a participant by their actions or not contributing to the escalation of an on-field confrontation.”
“Just a sensible move,” one Division I head coach told Baseball America in December when discussing NCAA rule changes. “No need to have kids getting thrown out of games if there’s no reason to throw them out.”
The Division I college baseball season is set to get underway on Friday, Feb. 14, with Clemson being one of the first teams to take the field.
The No. 8 Tigers will take on No. 13 Oklahoma State at noon ET. The contest will be streamed on FloCollege.
“I’m sure everyone says this but we feel really great about our team this year,” Bakich told BA last month. “We’ve got some veteran talent. We’ve got some established, proven guys who have earned some accolades in this program… We’ve just got a lot of leadership and depth and then we feel really good about our young kids, the 13 freshmen we brought in.”
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