TORONTO — Blue Jays hitting coach Brook Jacoby lost his appeal of a 14-game suspension handed him by Major League Baseball for an incident with an umpire after a game at Boston’s Fenway Park on April 29.
The ruling was that the suspension was for “postgame conduct toward the umpire crew.”
The incident happened in the tunnel leading from the dugout to the visiting clubhouse after a 4-1 Blue Jays loss to the Red Sox. The umpires use the same tunnel. After last week’s incident, the visiting teams will wait for the umpires to clear the exit before leaving the dugout.
Jacoby had his say through a statement released by the Blue Jays after the appeal was turned down. In the statement, Jacoby said that he was accused of physically accosting one of the umpires, a charge he denies.
“Unfortunately, there was a verbal altercation with the umpiring crew following a tough loss in Boston,” Jacoby said in the statement. “Frustrations escalated, leading to an altercation in which I was wrongly accused of contacting an umpire in the runway following our game.
“I’m in no way going to apologize for what happened and feel that the penalties were very biased, harsh, and unfair. I feel vindicated by the fact that everyone very near to the incident corroborated my actions when interviewed.”
Jacoby said he will have no further comment.
“I will not answer any questions concerning this incident from this point forward,” he said in the statement. “The game we play isn’t about the coaches or umpires, but about the players that play it.”
Blue Jays first baseman Edwin Encarnacion said last Tuesday that he was surprised by the severity of the punishment. “I never expected that kind of suspension the way I saw it in the tunnel,” he said. “What happened isn’t supposed to be that many games, because they just yelled at each other. They had contact, but not like the way they say. What I heard is (the umpires) said Brook got the umpire against the wall. That never happened.”
Encarnacion said there was “just bumping each other … but no hands.”
Encarnacion said bench coach DeMarlo Hale got between Jacoby and umpire Doug Eddings before the matter escalated. “Nothing happened,” Encarnacion said. “It could have been worse, but nothing happened like what they said.”