Announcers Call Out Houston Baseball Coach for Bush League Delay Tactics

Houston coach Todd Whitting asked some questions on his way to the door.
Houston coach Todd Whitting asked some questions on his way to the door. / Big 12 Conference / YouTube

The Oklahoma State Cowboys baseball team hosted the Houston Cougars for a three game series over the weekend, but not much baseball was actually played. Houston won Friday's game 7–4, but Saturday's game was rained out. Then things got really weird on Sunday as a lopsided score inspired the Cougars to try and draw the game out long enough for it not to count.

The game started at 12:33 pm local time and dragged on thanks to the weather which caused an hour-plus rain delay. With the Cowboys up 9–1 in the top of the 5th the Cougars did everything in their power to drag the game out so it wouldn't be official.

Here's the official Big 12 Conference's game highlights from YouTube. The first half of the six-minute video show the Cowboys scoring a lot of runs. The second half is all Houston trying to get the game canceled, including the ejection of Houston coach Todd Whitting.

It's not so much how Whitting got ejected, but how slowly he left the field. Gathering his backback and belongings. Talking to the umpires. Walking all the way around the field to the bullpen. The announcers even said, "This is about as bush as I've seen" in response.

After he finally left the Cougars further delayed things by not warming up a pitcher and then having a batter pretend to have his bat slip out of his hands to try and entice the umpires into calling another rain delay that would get them past the travel curfew deadline before the game was official.

Unfortunately for Houston, the plan didn't work and the loss will go on the permanent record of Whitting, who has been the head coach at Houston since 2011.


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Stephen Douglas
STEPHEN DOUGLAS

Stephen Douglas is a senior writer on the Breaking and Trending News team at Sports Illustrated. He has worked in media since 2008 and now casts a wide net with coverage across all sports. Douglas spent more than a decade with The Big Lead and previously wrote for Uproxx and The Sporting News. He has three children, two degrees and one now unverified Twitter account.