“Players Never Ejected Club” Photo Gallery
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With all the ‘heavy writing” we do around here, every once in a while it’s fun to step back and just have a little fun. So I thought this might be a good time to pull out of my old file cabinet an essay I wrote about four years ago on an overlooked baseball topic: ejections. In the featured photo above, we see Leo Durocher doing what he did best – jawing with an umpire. This one was probably taken a few moments before or after he was ejected, one of 94 he received as a manager! -GL

Fun With Baseball Ejections!

In writing about Stan Musial recently, someone mentioned that – not surprising – Stan had never been ejected from a game over his 22-year career. This little tidbit of information got my wheels spinning; and so I thought it would be fun to delve a little further into a topic that is almost always overlooked: baseball ejections.

I wondered how many other prominent players there are that had never been ejected from a game. With a little research, I unofficially came up with the following names, ranked by the number of games played. 

Players Never Ejected From a Game (Minimum 1700 Games)

1. Stan Musial – 3,026, 2. Willie Mays – 2,992, 3. Brooks Robinson – 2,896, 4. Robin Yount 2856, 5. Tony Perez* – 2,777, 6. Derek Jeter – 2,744, 7. Paul Waner – 2549, 8. Ernie Banks – 2528, 9. Harmon Killebrew – 2,435, 10. Willie Stargell – 2360, 11. Charlie Gehringer – 2323, 12. Jimmie Foxx – 2317, 13. Ted Williams – 2292, 14. Dale Murphy – 2180, 15. Jim Rice – 2089, 16. Gil Hodges* – 2071, 17. Lloyd Waner – 1993, 18. Bobby Doerr – 1865, 19. Joe DiMaggio – 1736, 20. Vern Stephens, 1720.
*Tony Perez was ejected once as a manager, never as a player.
* Gil Hodges was ejected 7 times as a manager.

Let’s move on to look at more aspects of baseball ejections. 

Most Manager Ejections (Top-15):

Bobby Cox – 161, John McGraw – 132, Earl Weaver – 94, Leo Durocher – 94, Tony LaRussa – 87, Paul Richards – 87, Frankie Frisch – 87, Bruce Bochy – 77, Ron Gardenhire – 73, Jim Leland – 68, Joe Torre – 66, Lou Piniella – 63, Clark Griffith – 58,  Bill Rigney – 51, Charlie Manuel – 50, Clint Hurdle – 50, John Gibbons – 50.

Manager Ejections by Percentage of Games Managed (Top-10):

Paul Richards – 4.4%, Earl Weaver – 3.7%, Bobby Cox – 3.7%, Frankie Frisch – 3.6%, Ron Gardenhire – 3.5%, Charlie Manuel – 2.8%, Leo Durocher – 2.5%, John McGraw – 2.4%, Jim Leland – 2.1%, Clark Griffith – 2.1%.

Players Ejected the Most:

Leo Durocher – 21, Milton Bradley – 17, Jackie Robinson – 16, Babe Ruth – 12, Casey Stengel -11. Feel free to add to this list.

Notable Total Ejections, Counting As Player, Manager and Coach:

John McGraw – 147 (132 as manager, 15 as player), Leo Durocher – 125 (94 as manager, 21 as player, 10 as coach), Frankie Frisch – 95 (8 as player, 87 as manager), Tony LaRussa – 88 (87 as manager, 1 as player), Casey Stengel – 54 (11 as player, 40 as manager, 3 as coach), Billy Martin – 55 (6 as player, 49 as manager), Sparky Anderson – 50 (1 as player, 49 as manager). 

Most Ejections By Umpire (Top-15):

Umpire Bill Klem

Bill Klem – 256, Cy Ringler – 192, Hank O’Day – 185, Bob Davidson – 156, Joe West – 151, Silk O’Laughlin – 145, Ernie Quigley – 141, Bob Emslie – 127, Derryl Cousins – 118, Jocko Conlan – 116, Lord Byron – 115, Gary Darling – 111, Frank Dascoli – 106, Augie Donatelli – 103, Rich Garcia – 103.

A Few Ejections Odds and Ends:

• Lou Gehrig was ejected 9 times!
• Eddie “The Brat” Stanky, a known umpire baiter who learned the trade from Leo “The Lip” Durocher, was ejected a total of 49 times (27 as a player, 22 as a manager).
• Mild-mannered Honus Wagner was actually ejected from more games than the irascible Ty Cobb (16-15).
• Saintly Connie Mack was actually ejected once from a game, by umpire Hank O’Day in 1895.
• Cal Ripkin, Sr. was ejected 31 times including 23 times as a coach, which may be a record for coaches. 
• Some of the reasons for ejections are hilarious. Frankie Frisch was once ejected from a game for “bringing out an umbrella to protest the weather.” Another time Frisch was ejected after a call at first base when he “faked fainting.”
• John McGraw was ejected for “abusing Pirates owner Barney Dreyfuss,” another time because “he told umpire he should wear glasses.” 
• Here’s a good one: Leo Durocher (once) and Earl Weaver (twice) were ejected from the pre-game meeting for arguing a call from the previous day!
• Earl Weaver was once ejected for “piling dirt on second base.”
• Umpire Paul Pryor, whose autobiography I helped edit two years ago, ejected only 33 players over a 21-year career.
• It’s surprising to see Charlie Gehringer on the no-ejections list. He always seemed like a sour puss and it’s almost impossible to find a photo of him smiling.

Other notable players and managers: Hank Greenberg – 3, Dizzy Dean – 5, Lefty Grove – 0, Rogers Hornsby – 3, Hank Aaron -1, Mickey Mantle – 8, Tris Speaker – 11, Frank Chance – 23, Yogi Berra – 27, Joe McCarthy -13, Shoeless Joe Jackson – 3, Joe Medwick – 8.

These lists I compiled are all unofficial, so feel free to add to any of the lists. If you have a player who you’d like to know how many times was ejected, just indicate his name below and I’ll give you the answer, as I know where to find the info!