Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol says umpire C.B. Bucknor 'has zero class' after rejecting handshake

The feud between St. Louis Cardinals manager Oliver Marmol and umpire C.B. Bucknor has officially carried into 2023.

The pair found themselves working on the same field Saturday in the Cardinals' spring training opener against the Washington Nationals, and it didn't take long for the bad blood to come out. Marmol told reporters after the game, including The Athletic's Katie Woo, that Bucknor declined an offer of a handshake during the pregame meeting between managers and umpires.

The incident did not improve Marmol's opinion of Bucknor, one of the most widely maligned umpires in the league.

From The Athletic:

The standoff between Marmol and Bucknor stems from an incident during a game between the Cardinals and Arizona Diamondbacks on Aug. 21 last year.

Bucknor, working as the home plate umpire, called a clearly inside pitch as a strike on Cardinals star Nolan Arenado. The call was bad enough to trigger laughter from the broadcast and some muted criticism from Arenado, which Bucknor reacted to by boisterously ejecting the third baseman.

Soon, Marmol was out and in Bucknor's face. The umpire started the argument with a smirk as Marmol angrily made his case before the run-in devolved into a face-to-face shouting match, which ended with another umpire coaxing away the manager.

Clearly, Bucknor is still holding some hard feelings from that day six months ago.

Marmol told reporters that the other three umpires in Saturday's game — Angel Hernandez, Carlos Torres and Ron Kulpa — all shook his hand and apologized for their colleague's behavior.

The Nationals won the game 3-2.