Abner Uribe’s Crotch Chop Celebration Got His Own Manager to Call Him ‘Unacceptable.’ Now What?
Abner Uribe closed out the eighth inning of a 6-0 Brewers win over the Cardinals on Tuesday night. He turned toward the St. Louis dugout. Then he made three giant DX-style crotch chop gestures, one right after the other.
And the funniest part is that his own manager was the angriest guy in the building.
Pat Murphy did not flinch. He called the celebration “unacceptable” and said he was “embarrassed” by it. Uribe owned it within hours, apologizing to the Brewers, his teammates, and his manager. But he also tried to explain his side. He said Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol had been making gestures that, to Uribe, looked like a signal to hit Brewers batters intentionally.
The Backstory Actually Matters
Uribe is a 25-year-old high-leverage reliever with a 99 mph fastball and a track record of letting emotion run his mound. He was suspended six games and fined back in 2024 after a benches-clearing brawl with Tampa Bay. He has been on a short leash ever since.
Tuesday night was not the same as that incident. The Brewers were up six. There was no real beef on the field. The Cardinals had challenged the final pitch and lost. Uribe took the moment to rub it in.
That is the part Murphy could not let go. The Brewers manage one of the best clubhouses in baseball precisely because they do not let stuff like this slide. Murphy publicly burying his own pitcher is a message to the rest of the room. We do not act like that here.
What Discipline Looks Like
MLB will probably get involved. The crotch chop is not on the official banned gestures list, but it falls under the broad “conduct detrimental” umbrella the league uses for stuff like this. A fine in the $5,000 to $15,000 range feels likely. A short suspension is possible if the league decides his prior history matters.
The bigger question is whether the Brewers themselves do anything internally. Sending Uribe down to Triple-A for a week would be drastic but not unheard of. Skipping him in the closer rotation for the next series would be the softer version. Murphy did not commit to anything Tuesday night. He did not deny it either.
The Verdict
Uribe needs to grow up. The stuff works. The 100 mph sinker is one of the best pitches in the bullpen. He has a real future as a closer. None of that matters if he keeps giving opposing teams free bulletin board material in May.
Pat Murphy did the right thing in burying him publicly. The next move is Uribe’s. If he comes back Wednesday and acts like a professional, this is a footnote by July. If he does it again, the Brewers will move on, and someone else will get a 99 mph arm for cheap.
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.
