Aaron Boone can’t stop getting ejected.
Just 61 games into this MLB season, the Yankees manager has already been tossed from a league-leading four games.
His most recent dismissal came on May 25 as he argued with umpire Edwin Moscoso over his strike zone as New York fell 3-1 to the Baltimore Orioles.
Since taking over as the Yankees’ manager in 2018, Boone has been ejected a staggering 30 times – leaving him with the third-fewest games per ejection (25.53) in MLB history, per Sports Illustrated.
But while Boone is a repeat offender, we’ve certainly seen worse over the years than him raising four fingers (for every perceived miss call) up to Moscoso’s face, for example.
In this millennium alone, we’ve seen an infamous brawl, a shocking clothesline and a swath of bats and balls thrown onto a baseball field in anger.
Here, Mail Sport takes you through some of the wildest US sports ejections in recent memory.
Aaron Boone leads the MLB in ejections this season, as he’s been thrown out of four games
Bob Knight throws a chair
The first ejection on this list is its oldest – and arguably the most infamous in American sports history.
In 1985, hot-headed college basketball coach Bob Knight was on the sidelines as his Indiana Hoosiers faced Purdue.
As a series of fouls was called against his players, Knight lost his cool.
First, Knight was handed a technical foul by referee Fred Jaspers as he argued with the official about the most recent foul call.
Bob Knight (left) is seen with Isaiah Thomas at Indiana’s Assembly Hall in February 2020
Then, with Purdue’s Steve Reid at the line to shoot a technical free throw, Knight hurled a chair across the court, with the seat flying over the hardwood past the baseline.
Knight continued screaming before athletic director Ralph Floyd was called onto the court by Jaspers and the head coach was dismissed from the contest.
Ultimately, there would prove to be a method behind Knight’s (literal) madness as he finished his career with three national championships and was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 1991.
Andrew Bynum elbows JJ Barea
Sticking with basketball, Andrew Bynum was ejected in 2011 for a nasty foul on JJ Barea in the Western Conference semifinals.
With Bynum’s Lakers losing by 30 with roughly eight minutes left in the contest – and on the verge of being swept with the series at 3-0 Dallas – the center took his anger out on the much smaller Barea.
The 5-foot-10 guard drove into the lane and made a floater, but the shot came with a price as the 7-foot Bynum sent his opponent flying by elbowing him while he was midair.
Andrew Bynum was ejected and suspended for this elbow on JJ Barea in the 2011 playoffs
Bynum was immediately thrown out of the game by referees, with broadcaster Mike Tirico calling the play ‘one of the biggest bush league things I’ve ever seen.’
The center was suspended for the first five games of the next season and fined $25,000.
And Barea got the last laugh as his Mavs went on to win the NBA title that postseason.
Andre Johnson fights Cortland Finnegan
Seven-time Pro Bowler Andre Johnson had plenty of highlight plays throughout his career, but his fight with cornerback Cortland Finnegan in 2010 is certainly one his most memorable moments.
The wide receiver and Finnegan were going toe to toe in an AFC South divisional battle and things boiled over between the pair at the eight-minute mark of the fourth quarter, with the Texans beating the Titans 17-0.
With Finnegan covering the usually stoic Johnson for much of the game, tensions were already bubbling between the pair but went past the point of healthy competition when the cornerback hit Johnson near the face with both hands.
The usually calm Andre Johnson blew up on Cortland Finnegan in this 2010 divisional game
From there, Finnegan’s helmet was ripped off but he managed to land a punch on Johnson.
The wide receiver’s helmet also came off soon after before he wound up on top of Finnegan, punching him.
The cornerback sarcastically clapped after they were separated, but both players were ejected and eventually fined $25k afterwards as the Texans won 20-0.
Myles Garrett swings his helmet at Mason Rudolph
The fight between Johnson and Finnegan actually looks mild when compared to Myles Garrett’s dangerous helmet swing in 2019.
Similar to other entries on this list, the game was largely out of reach when violence broke out as the Steelers trailed Garrett’s Browns 21-7 with just 15 seconds remaining in Thursday Night Football.
Pittsburgh’s stand-in quarterback Mason Rudolph snapped the ball and passed it out to running back Trey Edmunds before being taken down by Garrett.
But Rudolph seemed to take issue with the way Garrett tackled him, and the former Oklahoma State quarterback grabbed at the defensive end’s helmet while the pair were tangled up on the ground.
Myles Garrett ripped Mason Rudolph’s helmet off before swinging it at him in 2019
Once he was on his feet, Garrett retaliated by yanking Rudolph’s helmet off of his head and hitting him with it, before the quarterback was shoved from behind by Cleveland defensive lineman Larry Ogunjobi.
Garrett was then taken down by Rudolph’s teammates and kicked in the head by Pittsburgh offensive lineman Maurkice Pouncey.
Pouncey, Ogunjobi and Garrett were all ejected from the game, with all three suspended as well.
Ogunjobi got off the lightest with a one-game ban, Pouncey was suspended two games and Garrett wound up missing six games after an indefinite suspension.
Rasheed Wallace stares at Ron Garretson
Not all ejections involve violence. In fact, some of them don’t even involve words.
Rasheed Wallace’s Blazers were facing the Lakers in the 2000 Western Conference Finals when his penchant for staring – yes, staring – caused referee Ron Garretson to throw him out.
Wallace had already picked up a technical foul for saying something to Garretson from the sideline when he was out of the game, but his second indiscretion merely came from his demeanor.
Ron Garretson did not like the way Rasheed Wallace looked at him and ejected the forward
The Portland big man converted an and-one dunk – which was followed by an LA timeout – and proceeded to stare down Garretson after the play, with audio of the moment providing hilarious insight into what happened.
‘Whack, get out!,’ Garretson can be heard saying as he signaled a second technical foul on Wallace.
As Wallace silently walked away, his teammate Steve Smith argued that he hadn’t said anything, to which the referee agreed.
‘He didn’t say anything…. I asked him three times to stop staring at me to try and intimidate me, I’m done. He’s gone.’
The Blazers would go on to lose the game 109-94 as the Lakers eventually won the series in seven games.
Wally Backman has a yard sale
Wally Backman played 14 years in the MLB and won a World Series in 1986 with the Mets.
But in 2007, he found himself coaching for the minor league South Georgia Peanuts – captured in the documentary series ‘Playing for Peanuts’ – and he wasn’t happy when his team’s Doc Brooks was thrown out of a game.
After the outfielder was ejected for debating the location of a called strike, Backman raced onto the field from the dugout, firing expletive after expletive at the umpire.
Wally Backman hilariously dumped a bucket of balls onto the field in this 2007 ejection
After telling the umpire that he had a ‘horses**t zone all day’ – among other things – Backman was ejected as well and then became truly enraged.
The former Mets second baseman called the umpire a ‘little f***ing pipsqueak’, scuffed up home plate with his cleat and initially refused to leave the field.
But things only got more crazy after Backman finally got off the diamond, as he went to the dugout and threw 22 bats (per the show’s YouTube channel) and a bucket of balls on the field before departing for good.
He then hilariously suggested to Brooks that the two get a beer – but was suspended three games for confronting the opposing team’s radio play-by-play announcer and general manager in the press box after the game.
Dru Yearwood shoots a ball into the stands
While Backman’s bat-throwing was a victimless crime, the same can’t be said of Dru Yearwood’s actions last summer.
The New York Red Bulls midfielder was frustrated during an eventual 2-0 home loss to the Philadelphia Union, and kicked the ball into the stands during a dead ball in a moment of anger.
Dru Yearwood was snubbed by a fan as he tried to apologize for his kick into the stands
Yearwood immediately realized the gravity of his mistake and went into the stands to try and apologize, but a fan turned him away as he solemnly walked back onto the field.
There, he received his marching orders as he was red-carded – and it wasn’t just the customary one-game ban for Yearwood.
MLS tacked an additional three games onto his suspension, ruling him out of four games total.
(Dis)honorable mention: The ‘Malice at the Palace’
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While The ‘Malice at the Palace’ didn’t technically feature any ejections, we’d be remiss not to mention this ugly brawl between the Pacers and Pistons in 2004, which resulted in suspensions and legal charges galore.
The fight ensued at Detroit’s Palace of Auburn Hills with less than a minute remaining in a November 19 contest, when Pistons big man Ben Wallace took umbrage with a firm yet fairly ordinary foul from the Pacers’ Ron Artest (now known as Metta Sandiford-Artest) with Indiana up by 15 points.
Wallace retaliated with a big shove on Artest and the two teams began to scuffle, though it seemed to die down as coaches from both sides got involved.
Ron Artest was suspended for the rest of the 2004-05 season for his role in this brawl
But things amplified even further when Artest, who was laying on the scorer’s table, was hit by a cup of beer thrown by a fan.
Artest then erupted and went into the stands to attack the man he believed threw the cup at him, with teammate Stephen Jackson and Detroit’s Rasheed Wallace following him there.
The scene devolved into chaos, with fans spilling onto the court, players fighting them and coaches and security trying to diffuse the situation.
Technically speaking, no players were ejected because the entire game was called off with just 45.9 seconds remaining, but Artest was suspended for the rest of the season (73 games), Jackson was suspended 30 games and seven others received bans as well.
Additionally, five Pacers players (including Artest and Jackson) were charged with misdemeanor assault and battery, and so too were five Detroit fans.
