I was sort of surprised that there was no thread about this, so i thought i’d start one. For those who don’t really follow baseball, or haven’t seen it on the news, the story is here, and a Google news search will find hundreds more articles.
There’s also a link to video of the incident on that MLB page.
I know that people do some stupid and dangerous things, but the naive side of me finds it hard to believe that a fan would intentionally try to hit a player in the face. But at the same time, the height of the fan’s hand and his general stance makes it almost impossible to believe that he was going for the ball. One article i read suggested that he might have been trying to distract Sheffield from making the play, which would be some mitigation, i guess, but still a pretty irresponsible thing to do.
I was intrigued by what appeared to be an inconsistency in the comments of the fan’s fiancee, who was quoted in this article:
Bolding mine.
So, his excuse for the incident last night is that he was just going for the ball. But he’s also a long-time season ticket holder who knows not to go for the ball.
Based on what I saw, I blame both the guy and Sheffield equally.
The guy reached over the wall, just like every other fan did on Varitek’s triple. The difference is, Sheffield was right there when he did it. Do I think the guy went after him? Not at all. Did the guy hit him? Probably incidentally, yeah, but not in a violent manner.
Did Sheffield overreact? Yes. Shoving the guy and then threatening to hit him was a tremendous overreaction (roid rage, anyone?)
Bottom line, they’re both at fault, but Sheffield needs to chill out a bit.
Let’s be honest, the guy’s on tape with his arm way over the wall swinging, “careful not to interfere” my ass. There’s absolutely no reason for Sheffield to react at all if he wasn’t hit by someone, he was pretty busy at the time. Oh, and a big shout out goes to all the moron fans trying to turn their own player’s triple into a double.
I think the contact was accidental, but Sheffield didn’t know that. He overreacted, but at least he did restrain himself unlike some other athletes. He also got a beer tossed on him, on purpose or by accident, it’s hard to tell.
Stupid situation brought on entirely by fans who always seem to think they need to be part of the action instead of spectators.
In the four years or so that i’ve been in the US, i’ve been to a reasonable number of baseball games. Admittedly, i’ve never sat right down along the walls, because i prefer to be up a little bit in order to get a better look at the whole field.
But it never ceases to amaze me how many fans, many of whom are season ticket holder and so presumably know a little bit about baseball, insist on sticking their hands down in an attempt to interfere with a ball that is IN PLAY.
It’s even less comprehensible when you consider an episode like the one the other night, where the only possible consequence of interfering with the ball would have been to cost their own team a base. Oh, and possibly get thrown out of the park, because don’t most major league parks kick you out if you interfere with a ball in play?
And it’s not like they didn’t have time to think about it. That ball took about 5-6 seconds to get from the bat, down the line, and bounce around the walls in the corner before Sheffield even got to it. It’s not like the fans had to quickly throw their hands up to protect themselves from a line drive or something.
I tend to agree that, while Sheffield probably should have left things to security to sort out, he did actually show considerable restraint, given that he had every reason to believe that he’d been hit on purpose. I agree that the guy probably didn’t mean to actually hit Sheffield, but the fact is he never should have been in a position where hitting him was even possible. If shit like this keeps happening, they’ll start putting fencing up all around the ground like they used to do at English football grounds. If idiot fans keep on with this sort of moronic behavior, they will be the ones who suffer in the end.