Mini-hell breaking loose at Fenway
 

Sheffield swings at a fan along the line, bizarre shit unfolds fairly briefly.

so i just heard this from a friend, i was watching a bit of South Park at the time. Figures anyway. Put on the pinstripes and you turn into a no-class thug (by and large, with some exceptions). But just look at those two jokers from two years ago with the bullpen thing, and A-Rod with the fairy-swing last year, and now this. Guess it was a little roid-rage for Sheffy.

It looks like a fan was reaching down to try to pick up a live ball, and got in Sheffield's way. He overreacted, but the fan wasn't very innocent either.

After the first 20 or so of likely thousands of replays, my take ...

1) Sheffield looks like a complete ass in this sequence, absolutely uncalled for & he deserves at least a week suspension.

2) Watching it over & over, I don't believe the fan is swinging at Sheffield (as I think Gary thought) nor is he trying to interfere with the ball (as the talking heads were droning on & on about) -- looks to my like an almost random gesture, like he was swinging his arm. Notice that he's looking toward the infield, not at the ball nor at Sheffield when he swings his arm.

3) Rick Sutcliffe sounded like a friggin' idiot & Berman had to save him from making himself sound even dumber. He's about to go on a rant about some fan throwing a beer at poor Sheffield ... the beer was sitting on the rail and it spilled plain & simple Granted, it doesn't belong there, but if fans were packed liked sardines in arena seats ...

FTR, remember, I'm one of the guys who thoroughly & completely defended/defends the actions of Jermaine O'Neal, et al, so I'm not exactly part of the anti-player crowd.
Just calling this one, like that one, the way I see it.

Apparently the guy was arrested, according to the NESN reporter.

i wanna see the replay!! the NESN guys were also saying that Sheff came off looking majorly ridiculous and out of control...stupid thuggy yankees.

According to ESPN Sheffield didn't throw a punch. That doesn't seem too out of control to me. If you thought a fan, a Boston fan at that, was throwing a punch at you wouldn't you immediatly be on the defensive? At least he didn't use violence.

I dont believe the fan was swinging at Sheffield at all.

Me either.

The fan was arrested? For what? Assault? If so, why wasn't Sheff arrested as well?

okay I just saw the replay there on NESN. Doesn't look like Sheff was really swinging at the fan at all. Looks to me more like he was shrugging him away to make sure the guy didn't interfere with his throw. That said the guy shouldn't have been hanging his arm over there, but I guess what do you expect fans to do...see the ball and the play coming to them way out in rightfield and sit down to let the opponent make a play?

There is no way that fan should have been arrested.

That's what they do everywhere else.

I just heard on ESPN that the fan wasn't arrested, but was thrown out. That makes more sense.

now that's not true (about fans everywhere else sitting down)

dola


damn, postgame press conference and Tito is PISSED at the homeplate umpire (who did look a little pathetic IMO). "I'd had it...I didn't want to watch him umpire anymore."

I was just watching YES Network, and the commentator starting yelling about the lady, "who threw her beer". Are you kidding me? The lady reacted, fell back, and loss control her beer and it splash, not threw.

Maybe I don't watch enough baseball but I've never heard of a fan reaching onto the field to make contact with an opposing player who is trying to make a play...at least no time in the last 50 years. Do you have an example to point out?

I just saw the replay and the fan certainly wasn't the only one with his hands down there. EVERYBODY on that side was reaching down. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it IS done quite often at Fenway and Yankee Stadiums...

/tk

VPI - they weren't trying to make contact with Sheffield. They were just hanging their arms down over the wall

Yes, I agree with Torgo. They weren't interfering at all (unless maybe a bit distracting).

/tk

Meh...it looked to me like once Sheffield bent down, the fan swept his arm forward to clip him on the jaw. Intentional or not, if I were Sheffield I'd be pissed too. They need to raise the walls in some of these fields.

Well, fans do that crap all the time. I remember the Giants/Angels World Series game 7. An Angels player shoots a ball down the right field line and Giants RF Reggie Sanders chases it into the corner, where fans are hitting him on the back with their "thunder sticks" or whatever. It happens in nearly every game.

i suggest you watch it in slo-mo a couple times VPI. With the sound off. And thanks RFUS for the timely example.

Lost in this is what Fenway security said to the chick reporter on the sideline -- that the fan was "waving the ball around the corner" and made contact with Sheffield. Now that description of what he was doing with his arm is what I was saying, it was a motion with his arm, not anything aimed at the ball or Sheffield. And unless the guy wants to sit in the lap of the guy behind him, then yes, his arm will indeed break the plane in front of him and cross onto the playing surface. He was caught up in the moment, as many fans often are, but he wasn't taking a shot at Sheffield nor trying to interfere with anything.

I go back to something I believe I said during the NBA version of this -- it's way past time for physical barriers to be placed between fans & the playing surface for ALL major sports in the US. But in tonight's case, the only other option to prevent this would have been for the fans in that row of seats to have stood with their arms firmly at their sides/sat stoically in their seats during that particular play -- that's the only way that no part of their body crosses into the "airspace" over the playing field. That's just the reality of shoving seats that close to the field.

This isn't the Kennedy assassination. Sheffield instinctively grabbed his chin to check for a cut...that's a pretty clear indicator that contact was made.

watching the NESN postgame show. They just showed the 4th inning pitch to Sheffield with the bases loaded...conclusively a strike. No question about it. Right over the middle of the plate, mask high. The umpiring SUCKED tonight

That's pretty much what I think. If you can't trust fans to act right, get them out of position to interfere with the game.

watching the thing 4 or 5 times, the guy may have brushed him in the jaw, but he wasn't even LOOKING at sheffield. he was looking in toward the infield to see who was scoring. And as for the beer, somebody gets excited...bumps the lady...her beer spills forward. Nobody threw the goddamn beer on him, and nobody tried to assault him.

Thank god, after five or six days, we finally have something to thrust the Yankees/Red Sox rivalry back onto the front page.

LOL

All I know is that after the whole Pistons/Pacers thing if I was a player in a rival's stadium and I was making a play near the stands and I felt someone touch me, that would be my reaction too. He didn't make himself look like an ass.

Really? After Pacers/Pistons, you'd think it was a good idea to escalate an altercation with fans instead of just walking away?

(By the way, just saw the replay... there's no way that was the "uppercut" that ESPN described. Maybe close enough that you can say Sheffield was justified in protecting himself, but you'd think the media that's had a chance to see a few replays would call it like it is.)

Worst....Hub ub.......Ever.

Whether or not Sheffield was justified in defending himself, the important thing to note is that he did it BEFORE throwing the ball back to the infield. Idiot!

It was obvious that the fan was looking at the infield and I'm pretty sure he was acting like a base coach, as in telling the runners to go on. He probably didn't know that Shef was going to be that close, however I honestly think that Sheffield did throw a punch right after words, or atleast shoved him. I think they should have arrested HIM. Completely uncalled for. [and I'm on of the guys on the players side in the NBA brawl]

How about that security guy jumping in the middle of them. He was the smallest guy in there. That took balls.

Much ado about nothing.

Comical that you think the fan did anything wrong there.

Not defending the fans at all, as they shouldn't be doing that.

But IIRC, the thunderstick or two that were waved at Sanders did not hit him and were behind him, and he just completely misplayed the ball.

And the runners on base were going to score anway just on the hit alone. :)

(I know Giants fans will disagree, but, wow, that was a great Series no one east of the Mississippi bothered to watch)

CR

I think the fan is fully to blame here. Sheffield was running with the play with his eye on the ball and the fan took a big swipe in the field of play. Now, whether to get the ball, to hit Sheffield, or my speculation, to knock Sheffield's cap off to make his buddies laugh, the fan had no business interfering with a player on the field.

How dare you question the infallible integrity of the fan?! A fan would never EVER do anything of the things that you have suggested. :rolleyes:

Plain and simple.. its time for space to be put between fans and the court/playing field.. eliminate first row seating should pretty much eliminate the need for barricades


And as far as this situation.. That fan had no right to be reaching over the railing, and being ejected from the stadium was also right.. Nothing should happen to sheffield

Eliminate the first row of seating? Are you crazy? Those seats are expensive! I think the owners would rather put up plexiglass then lose out on the revenue from the first row of seats.

Hear me out ksyrup.. eliminate the first row of seating.. and up that 2nd row to the 1st row cost touting them as "Expanded leg room seats"

If you expand the leg room of the second row, that means they can get just as close to the field as if there were still first row seats, though. Doesn't that defeat the purpose?

Well, then if they are reaching over the sides.. its clearly their fault :)


Besides most people are too lazy and too slow to react that fast to a ball they'd have to get up and walk 3-5 feet and reach over a rail for :)

Man, you all need glasses.

First of all, it wasn't the lady that threw the beer, it was the guy next to her that appeared to intentionally toss his beer in Sheffield's direction and then sort of sneaks away. Maybe if you watch it again, you'll be able to see. Or maybe I'm blind, but it pretty much looks like the dude next to her, the one with the big smile on his face, tosses his beer then sort of backs away behind somebody else.

The other fan grazed Sheffield in the face and the simple fact is, regardless of where he's looking, he reached into the field of play and made contact with a player. I don't get how people are getting all pissy at Sheff, when he just sort of pushed the guy away, threw the ball back in and restrained himself. Going to many games a year, I can honestly say that most fans at Fenway are drunk and beligerent...it's the fun of it to us I guess. But to place the blame on a ballplayer who is interfered with in the middle of a play on the field is retarded.

Yeah, fans should be able to toss beers and reach on to the field at players during live play. Mabye we should just release 10 fans each play onto the field and let them wreck havoc until stopped.

Whatever, dude.