It can be frustrating to watch your team lose, and even more so when you’re losing to a division rival. But Friday, fans of the New York Yankees took it to another level and showed what you shouldn’t do.
The Tampa Bay Rays have won 11 of the 14 regular-season meetings against the Yankees since the start of the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, which of course frustrates fans in New York to no end. But Friday was the first time they got to witness it in person, and trailing 8-2 in the eighth inning, the folks in the outfield bleachers decided to start throwing baseballs on to the field and at Rays players.
It got bad enough that even Yankees TV broadcaster Michael Kay had to rip the bleacher creatures.
Fans at Yankee Stadium are throwing baseballs onto the field.
Stop this nonsense and act like adults. pic.twitter.com/Mn8XvyBy7w
— Dillard Barnhart (@BarnHasSpoken) April 17, 2021
But Rays manager Kevin Cash said despite the actions of fans in the Bronx, he did not feel that his players were in danger.
“You’re always concerned when people are throwing stuff on the field,” Cash said after Friday’s game. “I don’t know if it was baseball giveaway day, I’m not sure. For whatever reason, one or two did it, and then it seemed like there were 15 others that followed.”
Steve Carney is the founder and publisher of St. Pete Nine. One of the people most associated with baseball coverage in Tampa Bay, he spent 13 seasons covering the Rays for flagship radio station WDAE, first as producer of Rays Radio broadcasts, then as beat reporter beginning in 2011. He likes new analytics and aged bourbon, and is the owner of one of the ugliest knuckleballs ever witnessed by baseball scouts.
