He had seen enough for one night.
There had been a missed call — in his view — at home plate that led to a Bowie first-inning run.
And then, in the fifth inning of Saturday’s game between the Double-A Erie SeaWolves and Bowie Baysox at UPMC Park, Erie manager Gabe Alvarez yelled after home-plate umpire Matt Blackborow failed to call a strike that Alvarez and game video said was clearly a strike, which led to Blackborow giving him the thumb for protesting.
But head to the clubhouse, the usual custom for a tossed manager?
Nope. Not by the usual route — not when clubhouses are beyond UPMC Park’s center-field fence. Alvarez strolled down the third-base line, turned quickly past a gate leading to the left-field stands, hiked up two flights of stairs, then turned left and moved down the concourse, past fans buying hot dogs and beers, before exiting the ballpark and turning into the connected Erie Insurance Arena.
The first door was locked.
“I finally found a guy to let me in the arena,” Alvarez said Sunday, after his long march, narrated by Erie broadcasters Greg Gania and Sam Lebowitz, had been turned into a Twitter hit.
Erie, of course, is the Tigers’ Double-A partner, and Alvarez, a one-time Tigers player, is the SeaWolves’ second-year manager. He also wasn’t happy Saturday that the SeaWolves, a steady division contender this spring, were in the process of losing a fifth straight game.
Alvarez talked about an event, spontaneous and audience-pleasing, during a Sunday morning phone conversation.
“We’d been having a tough series, so tensions were hot, and I disagreed with a few calls, and the umpire ejected me from the game — and he was probably right to do so,” Alvarez said, 12 or so hours after the SeaWolves had lost, 6-2.
“As I was leaving the field, I didn’t want to walk through the regular opening in left-center field, so I just figured I’d walk to the end (third-base line) as far as I could go, and then walk through the stands, and then into the hockey arena to get to our clubhouse.
“I didn’t know the camera was following me all the time. After I saw it on Twitter, I said, ‘Oh, man.’”
Alvarez’s temper was short, he repeated, because of one run scored during what became a three-run first inning for Bowie against SeaWolves starter Wilmer Flores.
There is no video-review at Double-A games, as there is in MLB duels. So, Alvarez and the SeaWolves had to live with a call that still was irking them as Blackborow — in their overwhelming view — continued to have a bad night on the job.
“We thought there were some pitches missed — we felt we were getting squeezed a bit,” Alvarez said. “I already was mad.
“But he (Blackborow) was in the right. I was in the dugout (squawking). He just said I was out of there.”
Or, in this case, really out of there.
Alvarez and the Erie fandom have been something of an item the past two seasons in a town that tends on an annual basis to adopt the SeaWolves.
He was getting his share of thumbs-ups from the crowd as he wended his way through the seats and concourse.
“They were just saying, ‘Way to go,’ and that kind of thing,” Alvarez said.
“I love the Erie fans.”
Lynn Henning is a freelance writer and retired Detroit News sports reporter.