Phillip Wellman

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Phillip Wellman, manager of the M-Braves

Phillip Wellman is the American manager of the Mississippi Braves of the Southern League. Wellman entered professional baseball as a player in 1984 and began coaching in 1988. Wellman attended Sam Houston State University and Southwestern University.

On June 1, 2007, Wellman gained international attention when he went on a tirade against the umpires during a game against the Chattanooga Lookouts at AT&T Field. He protested the umpire throwing his pitcher out of the game for using a foreign substance^[1] by covering home plate with dirt, then tracing in the dirt a new, significantly larger home plate. He then went on to uproot bases and throw them, crawl in a prone position across the infield like a soldier, and pretend to bite and hurl the rosin bag at an umpire as if it were a hand grenade. He concluded his tirade by pretending to eject the umpires themselves with a fist-pump and then blowing a farewell kiss to the crowd while taking a bow. The episode was broadcast on sports shows across the United States and gained him wide-spread fame on the Internet.^[1]Wellman was given a three game suspension effective June 4, 2007.