Yankees teammates might've just pranked Ben Rice with strange new celebration

Ben Rice's first at-bat of Wednesday night's rain-delayed game against the Minnesota Twins might've just given us our first glimpse of Yankees chemistry in quite a while. Of course, it was led by Amed Rosario and the electric bench mob.

After waiting through an hour and 52 minute delay like the rest of us, the Yankees stared down the barrel of a difficult challenge in Joe Ryan, but Rice proved up to the task in his first at-bat. Another long evening. Another hard-hit ball. Only this time, it dropped in instead of being snagged by somebody's lunge (par for the course for the unluckiest hitter in baseball).

The confusion hardly stopped after Rice reached first. After attempting some sort of celebration, the Amazon Prime broadcast cut to Rosario, Luis Gil, Fernando Cruz, and Jasson Dominguez beckoning Rice to try something different (and almost dog paws-like?). Cruz, especially, was really selling it, holding his hand in a split-finger grip and flopping it forward.

Rice, after mouthing a very clear, "What?" obliged as the benched Yankees went crazy.

Yankees' bench mob definitely just pranked Ben Rice with new celebration vs. Twins

Like ... that's definitely what happened, right?

Cruz has three rehab appearances on his upcoming schedule, but we're very glad he was at Yankee Stadium on Wednesday to help lead the charge in whatever this was. Rosario was the closest thing we had to a ring leader (of course he was, ultimate vibes guy), but Cruz was by far the most enthusiastic celebrator, as well as the guy who laughed the hardest. Rice might be cooked.

Following this late night waterlogged ballgame, the Yankees will fly to St. Louis and resume their summer slate with a series opener against the Cardinals on Friday. After this video goes viral, that's going to be an interesting flight and off day for Rice. It didn't seem like he knew he was doing something embarrassing. It seemed like he had absolutely no background knowledge of the thing he was being asked to do whatsoever. That's why it's got to be a prank. He'll find out soon. We probably won't, but he likely will.

Rookie hazing isn't just reserved for dress-up during the season's final road trip.