Brewers Reliever Abner Uribe Refuses to Apologize to Cardinals After Crotch Chop Celebration
Abner Uribe apologized to his teammates. He apologized to his coaches. He apologized to his manager. He apologized to Brewers fans. The one group he is not apologizing to? The St. Louis Cardinals.
Milwaukee’s flame-throwing reliever lit up baseball Twitter on Tuesday with a D-Generation X crotch chop aimed directly at the Cardinals dugout after a strikeout in the Brewers’ 6-0 win at American Family Field. The video went everywhere, and by Wednesday morning, MLB was reportedly already looking into discipline.
Uribe came to his postgame presser ready to clean it up, sort of.
“I understand that it’s unacceptable to go out there and react like that,” Uribe said through an interpreter. “At the same time, I don’t think it’s professional for their manager to be making signs towards our dugout saying that he’s going to be hitting guys. There was an event that occurred during the practice today, too, and I don’t think that was right, so I have my teammates’ back, always.”
That is not really an apology to St. Louis. That is the baseball version of “I’m sorry you got mad.”
Here is what actually happened. The Cardinals believed the Brewers were stealing signs from second base. Oli Marmol got animated in the dugout, pointed at his ribs, and reportedly made gestures suggesting Milwaukee hitters might wear one. Uribe and the Brewers saw that as a threat. The crotch chop was the response.
Marmol gave his own version on Wednesday. “We felt like they were being pretty demonstrative about relaying from the dugout,” Marmol told Adam McCalvy of MLB.com. “I looked over, I said ‘Hey, don’t do it. Be smart. You’re going to get somebody hurt.'”
Both sides are partially right. Stealing signs from second base is not against the rules. Threatening to hit batters absolutely is. And whipping out a wrestling move from 1998 in the middle of a Major League game is, at minimum, going to draw a fine.
Uribe is no stranger to this. He was at the center of a bench-clearing brawl with the Rays in 2024. He pitches with an edge, and he has the velocity to back it up. That combination tends to get attention, both good and bad.
The bigger context is that the Brewers and Cardinals are first and second in the NL Central right now. Milwaukee leads the division, St. Louis is two games back, and these teams are going to play 17 more times this year. If the umpires do not crack down hard on this one, someone is wearing a fastball before June ends.
MLB will probably suspend Uribe for a handful of games. The Brewers will pay a fine. Marmol might too. And the next time these two teams meet, every single pitch is going to be a story.
Uribe was unapologetic, his manager Pat Murphy was protective, and St. Louis was furious. That is exactly the kind of feud baseball used to be famous for, and it is back.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
