Major League Baseball may be giving Rodolfo Castro a phone call.
The league is reportedly looking into the bizarre incident that transpired during Tuesday’s Pirates-Diamondbacks game, in which a cell phone fell out of Castro’s back pocket as he slid into third base.
According to The Athletic’s Ken Rosenthal, Castro is “technically in violation of MLB’s regulation prohibiting electronic devices on the field or in the dugout,” with the lone exception being MLB-approved iPads. It is unknown if Castro will face discipline from the league.
After the game, Castro expressed remorse for the incident, maintaining that it was “very unintentional.”
“I don’t think there’s any professional ballplayer that would ever go out there with any intentions of taking a cellphone,” Castro told reporters through an interpreter. “It’s horrible it happened to me.”
Castro, a 23-year-old second baseman, said that he placed his oven mitt — utilized by players to avoid hand injuries when sliding into bases — in his back pocket, causing him to forget about the phone.
After the phone fell out, Castro quickly handed it to his third base coach, Mike Rabelo.
“You stay around the game and you see things you haven’t seen before,” Pirates manager Derek Shelton said. “This was just a kid who made a mistake. It’s just one of those things we move forward from and tell him, ‘You can’t do that.’”