As far as I know, the hernia procedure went as planned yesterday. It was entirely laparoscopic, so the recovery shouldn’t be TOO bad. Nothing like the back surgery, anyway. Not sure I would require a full 10-day IL stint for this one, so to speak …
- The New York Yankees stayed alive last night, with Anthony Volpe’s grand slam sparking an offense that’d otherwise been relatively quiet. The Dodgers got an early homer from Freddie Freeman (yes, again) for the lead, but the game ultimately turned into an 11-4 route.
- The full highlights:
- Good offensive highlights there and everything, but the clip that’ll probably make the most rounds in the years ahead is this one:
- As you can see, the fan(s) initially tried to make a play on the ball – which is normal and understandable and instinctive – and it maybe even looked like it was set to fall just inside the wall and onto the field (so a fan interference call was likely no matter what else happened). But these guys took it about a million steps further, grabbing Betts’ glove and arm, trying to physically pry the already-caught ball away.
- The two fans were, of course, ejected from the game. If it were up to me, they wouldn’t set foot back in a ballpark – any ballpark – for a very long time.
- After the game, which his team lost by a lot, you could understand why Mookie Betts really did have much interest in discussing that first inning moment:
- Here’s some unwarranted valorizing of the interferer(s):
- The craziest thing comes from the subsequent article at ESPN, emphasis mine:
‘Capobianco, a Yankees season-ticket holder, said he knew he would be in trouble but chose to grab and open Betts’ glove nonetheless, telling ESPN that he and Peter often discuss this exact scenario: If a foul ball comes their way, they’re going to do what they can to help their team.
“We always joke about the ball in our area,” Capobianco, 38, said at a local bar after the game. “We’re not going to go out of our way to attack. If it’s in our area, we’re going to ‘D’ up.
“Someone defends, someone knocks the ball. We talk about it. We’re willing to do this.” …
Capobianco and Peter were escorted out of Yankee Stadium but said they were told they would be allowed back for Game 5 on Wednesday. The Yankees did not immediately respond to ESPN’s request for comment regarding if that was indeed the case.’
- They kinda pre-planned it, then got kicked out for actually doing it, and now might be let back in for the very next game?!? No chance. It has to be that whoever kicked them out didn’t really know for sure what they were talking about, and these guys took it as gospel. After the team (and/or the league) reviews the tape, sees how these guys were physically grabbing a player on the field, they will be barred from coming back today. As I said, I would ban them for like 20 years from all MLB and MiLB stadiums. That kind of behavior just goes so far outside the bounds of anything you can treat as a cute little side story.
- OK, but I am guilty of playing, too, because I had to make a joke:
- Nobody tried to take this one out of Anthony Rizzo’s glove:
- Speaking of Rizzo, he is one of the few in the World Series who has been through something like this:
- Very few pitches look as good as a Mark Leiter Jr. splitter against a lefty when he’s really got it working:
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- It took all that time for Lonzo Ball to get back – impressive hard work, actually – and then he almost immediately suffers a different injury. Sigh.
- Over at BN Blackhawks, a prospects rankings update.
- YES IS THE CORRECT ANSWER: