LEXINGTON, KY. ? Managerial mayhem overshadowed the Lexington Legends’ 5-2 victory over the Asheville Tourists on Sunday night.

Tip Fairchild (9-3) threw seven innings of five-hit shutout ball, with six strikeouts and no walks, and the Legends got RBI hits from Koby Clemens, Mark Ori and Ole Sheldon in a four-run fifth inning. Another run scored on Eric King’s sacrifice fly.

Eli Iorg added a solo homer in the eighth as the Legends gained a split of the four-game series.

But the buzz at Applebee’s Park was all about a fifth-inning blowup by Tourists Manager Joe Mikulik.

“That was incredible. That’s gotta be on ESPN or something,” said Fairchild, not knowing that video of Mikulik already was being aired. “I’ve seen coaches go off, but that was pretty good. … He used everything – bases, the resin bag, the hat, the dirt. Everything.”

The Legends had just taken a 1-0 lead on a Clemens double.

With Josh Flores at the plate, Tourists starter Brandon Durden (5-2) wheeled and fired a pickoff throw to second. When umpire Andy Russell signaled safe, Mikulik sprinted from the dugout.

An animated, in-your-face argument quickly led to Mikulik’s first ejection of the season.

In quick order, the manager: tossed his hat to the pitcher’s mound; took a head-first slide into second; uprooted the base, showed it to Russell and tossed it, a la Lou Piniella; grabbed the resin bag and flung it to the right-field bullpen; confronted plate umpire Stephen Barga and kicked dirt on the ump’s feet; kicked the batter’s box lines; kicked dirt on the plate; went to his knees to further cover the plate by hand; fired four bats from the dugout; returned to “clean” home plate with contents of a water bottle; squatted in the umpire position in a mock glance toward the mound; and spiked the bottle on the plate.

“I thought the strike was over,” Mikulik said. “When will the real umpires show up? That’s what I want to know. Because that was an abortion. That was bad. The whole series was awful.”

As Mikulik took the long walk to the right-field exit, a crying baby and then “Hit the Road Jack” blared over the P.A. system.

According to Legends officials, Mikulik then stacked a chair, two water coolers and a batting-practice screen in front of the door to the umpire locker room.