Watch: Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich ejected from game after umpire dispute
Clemson baseball coach Erik Bakich was ejected during the Tigers’ Wednesday’s loss against Wake Forest in Charlotte after arguing with an umpire.
Home plate umpire Chris Ward ejected Bakich during the second inning of the Tigers’ game at Truist Field after Bakich argued with him following a pitch clock violation called against a Clemson batter.
In the top of the second inning, Clemson trailed Wake Forest 3-0 and had two outs and a runner on third when shortstop Tyler Lichtenberger came up to bat.
As Lichtenberger prepared for the third pitch of his at-bat, the ACC Network Extra broadcast of the game showed the App State transfer looking down at his bat and gloves and hesitating as the 20-second pitch clock ticked down.
Bakich said postgame that Lichtenberger was “doing something with his batting glove,” which was a logical time for Clemson to use one of the few “offensive timeout” periods college baseball teams can use while they’re batting.
But Ward, the home plate umpire, didn’t grant Lichtenberger a timeout and called him for a pitch violation moments later, as Lichtenberger settled into the batter’s box to await a pitch from Wake Forest’s Rhys Bowie.
Bakich came out of Clemson’s dugout to talk to Ward and was visibly frustrated, at one point getting within a few inches of Ward’s face and pointing at him.
“I thought the umpire was giving (Lichtenberger) timeout, because he clearly called timeout,” Bakich said postgame, via The Clemson Insider. “I would have called timeout myself. And so when they had that conversation, that’s exactly what I thought was happening: We’re just taking a timeout.”
Bakich continued: “And then that conversation just turned into ‘No.’ The explanation was: He (Ward) said he didn’t have to give him (Lichtenberger) a timeout, which is, I guess, at the umpire’s discretion.”
After Licthenberger’s strikeout, which ended the top of the second inning, Bakich confronted Ward but wasn’t immediately ejected. After about three minutes, though, Ward formally ejected Bakich before the bottom of the second inning.
It’s unclear if Bakich said anything else to Ward from Clemson’s dugout. Once he saw he’d been ejected, though, Bakich ran out onto the field and confronted Ward a second time, getting close to him and pointing in his face.
Bakich after ejection: ‘It’s not why we lost’
After Bakich’s ejection, Clemson assistant head coach Nick Schnabel served as acting head coach for the remainder of the game. Wake Forest wound up beating Clemson 15-4 via run rule in seven innings.
In Bakich’s fourth season as coach, Clemson is now 19-11 and 2-7 in the ACC, the second-worst conference mark among 18 league teams (Cal is 1-8).
Wednesday’s ejection was Bakich’s third at Clemson. He and special assistant Jack Leggett were ejected from the Tigers’ season-ending 2024 super regional loss to Florida. Bakich was also ejected from a 2023 game vs. Notre Dame.
“It’s not why we lost, and it really didn’t factor into the outcome of the game,” Bakich said of his ejection. “And anything b*tching about the umps just looks like sour grapes and looks soft, so I’m not going to do it.”
The Tigers, who’ve been among the ACC’s winningest teams under Bakich and have hosted three straight NCAA regionals as top 16 seeds, have now lost 10 of 14 games after a 15-1 start.
“The umpires have been good all year,” Bakich said. “They’re certainly not our problem. We’re our own problem, and we’ve got to out of our own way and get out of our own self-inflicted wounds. But it wasn’t the umpire’s fault tonight.”
In another nod to his ejection, Bakich also said everybody on the team needed to “be better,” including himself. But he stood by his actions Wednesday.
Although NCAA postseason ejections trigger automatic two-game suspensions, regular-season ejections don’t carry the same weight. Bakich is expected to be available to coach Clemson’s three-game series at Stanford starting Friday.
“I’ll always defend our players, especially if it’s something like that, where I felt like I needed to stick up for (Lichtenberger),” Bakich said. “I’ll always do that, and I will never shy away from that.”
This story was originally published April 1, 2026 at 7:57 PM.
