If Lawrie doesn't act like a complete jerk there is no problem either. It seems the umpire got mad because some rookie basically showed him up after the strike 2 call where he walked very slowly back to the plate and was practically staring at the ump the whole time. While it may have been a ball, calls like that happen every day and after seeing Lawrie's reaction to the strike 2 call, I knew if the next pitch was even remotely close to a strike, which is stretching it on the last pitch, he was going to get rung up. I'm not saying the ump was right to do it but I could see it coming because of Lawrie's actions. This is the way I see it, too. The strike two call reaction from Lawrie was a bit over-the-top. Then you had Fernando Rodney staring down Lawrie as well, but that's a different matter. Bottom line is, they were probably balls on strikes two and three, but the way Lawrie ran out of the box on a borderline pitch was questionable. The ump clearly didn't like it, it brought a weird aura to home plate, and if the next pitch was going to be close Lawrie had better be hacking. He wasn't and was rung up. I've seen it a thousand times. I had never seen a player hit an ump with his batting helmet. That IS a first.