After a heated argument with second base umpire Marty Foster on Monday night, Jim Leyland was ejected. According to Jason Beck, Major League Baseball reviewed the ejection and decided it's only fair to dish out a one-game suspension:
MLB suspends #Tigers manager Jim Leyland for tonight's game at Rays. No appeal process for managers, so McClendon will presumably fill in.
Leyland went to argue a missed call by Foster, who called B.J. Upton safe at second when he was clearly out, but let some saliva (or sunflower seed remnants fly) instead. Foster accused Leyland of intentionally spitting on him and ejected him immediately, which further enraged Leyland:
"I had some sunflower seeds in when I was talking," Leyland said. "Some sprayed on him, and he indicated that I deliberately spit on him, and I'm not going to take that from anybody. I'm not going to do it.
"Did I spray him? Yes. Did I mean to? No. I was talking right close [to him] and what happens a lot of times, happened. I asked him if he was going to write me up. He said, 'You spit on me.' I said, 'You mean to tell me that you're going to write up that I deliberately spit on you?' He said, 'Yes.' I said, 'Well that's a blatant lie.' I'm tired of protecting them, worrying about what you should say and what you can't say. I don't care that he missed the play. I don't care that he threw me out. But when you make accusations like that, I'm not going to accept that. That's a blatant lie. I don't even spit on the ground."
MLB said they were going to review the ejection, which did include some bumping as Leyland tried to get to Foster and defend himself for the "spit" Foster was accusing him of slinging purposefully, so perhaps that's why they ultimately decided to suspend him for a game. Either way, Leyland definitely did not intentionally spit on Foster and MLB should consider holding Foster accountable for falsely accusing the Tigers skipper here.
Long story short, Jim Leyland won't be in the Tigers dugout tonight.