Angels Reliever Brent Suter Started a National Anthem Standoff and the Ump’s Reaction Left Fans Scratching Their Heads

Colin Kaepernick spent years teaching athletes to disrespect the national anthem.

Saturday at Tropicana Field, baseball players used the anthem for something completely different.

An umpire threw three players out of a game before the first pitch was ever thrown – and the reason is something you need to see.

National Anthem Standoff at Tropicana Field

After "The Star-Spangled Banner" finished playing in St. Petersburg, Angels reliever Brent Suter did not move.

He planted himself in front of the visitors' dugout near the third-base line and just stood there.

Across the diamond, two Tampa Bay Rays pitchers – Steven Wilson and Manuel Rodríguez – did the same thing near the first-base dugout.

The Rays mascots Raymond and DJ Kitty took up positions beside Wilson and Rodríguez like furry corner men in a boxing match.

Rays starter Drew Rasmussen stood on the mound ready to go.

Angels leadoff man Zach Neto stood in the batter's box waiting for something – anything – to happen.

The whole thing lasted what the TV broadcast estimated at seven or eight minutes.

Nobody blinked.

This was a good old-fashioned dugout standoff – a baseball tradition where players on opposing sides wait each other out after the anthem, each side refusing to retreat first.

It is a lighthearted act of competitive theater that ballplayers have used for decades as a spark before a game.

Third-base umpire Lance Barrett was not amused.

Barrett walked out, looked at Suter, looked across at Wilson and Rodríguez, and ejected all three of them before a single pitch had been thrown.

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Brent Suter on His First Career Ejection

Suter's teammate Chase Silseth joined him initially but eventually broke ranks and headed back to the dugout – leaving Suter alone on his side of the field like the last soldier standing.

Suter had the good humor to admit what everyone already knew.

"Not the coolest way to get ejected, but one of the funnier ways to get ejected," he told The Orange County Register.

This was the first ejection of Suter's ten-plus year major league career.

Wilson and Rodríguez are both on the injured list – Wilson recovering from lumbar disc inflammation, Rodríguez from elbow surgery – and neither has made his 2026 season debut yet.

None of the three were going anywhere important.

The Angels then went out and demolished the AL East-leading Rays 14-3.

MLB Let Kneelers Play and Ejected the Guy Who Stood

For a decade, professional sports leagues bent over backwards to accommodate players who turned the national anthem into a political protest platform.

When Colin Kaepernick started kneeling in 2016, the NFL spent years paralyzed – no ejections, no suspensions, just hand-wringing press conferences and owners afraid of their own locker rooms.

In 2017, A's catcher Bruce Maxwell became the first MLB player to kneel during "The Star-Spangled Banner."

Nobody ejected Bruce Maxwell.

What happened Saturday in St. Petersburg was the exact opposite of all that.

Three players stood at attention, honored the anthem, and then refused to leave the field – not as a protest, not as a political statement, but out of the kind of competitive trash-talking that has existed in professional baseball longer than anyone in that stadium has been alive.

Lance Barrett let every kneeler play ball without consequence for years.

The first time a player stands at attention for the anthem and refuses to budge, Barrett gives him the boot.

The players who treated the flag as a political prop got to keep playing.

The player who treated the anthem like a competitive dare got ejected before the game started.

Barrett needs to explain that one – and so does Major League Baseball.

Sources:

• Chantz Martin, "National Anthem Standoff Between Rays and Angels Players Leads to Pregame Ejections at Tropicana Field," OutKick/Fox News, May 30, 2026.
• Paul Bois, "Players Ejected After Angels, Rays Engage in National Anthem Standoff," Breitbart, June 1, 2026.
• "Angels, Rays Pitchers Ejected in National Anthem Stand-Off," MLB.com, May 30, 2026.