This article has been updated from a previous version.
Blue Jays vs. Yankees has become the silliest series in this fledgling MLB season.
John Schneider continued the trend Tuesday in the second game of the four-game set. After Jays pitching coach Pete Walker barked at New York's Luis Rojas to stay in the third base coach's box, Schneider seemed to look out at someone on the Yankees side and say "shut up fat boy" with a dismissive wave.
This ensnared the minds of baseball Twitter, which was dying to know who Schneider was talking to.
Blue Jays manager John Schneider was yelling at Yankees' third base coach Luis Rojas for leaving the coaches box. He also yelled "shut up fat boy" to someone on the Yankees side pic.twitter.com/MUUzhxzwND
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) May 16, 2023
Tempers were already running hot after Toronto accused the Yankees of some underhanded tactics that led to an Aaron Judge home run in the first game. The fact the Blue Jays started nitpicking the position of the base coaches — while lining up out of position themselves — only compounded it.
MORE: Blue Jays pitcher Jay Jackson admits he had a tell ahead of Aaron Judge homer
Still, Schneider's outburst begs the question: What exactly did he say, and to whom did he say it?
What did John Schneider say to Yankees?
'Shut up fat boy'
"Shut up fat boy" seems to be largely accepted as what Schneider barked at the Yankees. It certainly seems to be what his lips are saying, but the thing is, the camera never shows who he's talking to. So while it could be what he said, it's all speculative as to who he could have been chirping at.
Yankees assistant hitting coach Brad Wilkerson, for what it's worth, noticed a lot of the attention from the New York Post article focused on him. His picture features prominently in the article detailing the incident.
“I’d like to hear it from his end, but stuff happens,” Wilkerson said Wednesday (via The Post). “We try to stay in our dugout. Some things happened over at third base and we were trying to defend our guys. I didn’t know anything about it until after the game when I saw the writeups and (it was) shown all over TV.
"I guess it was pointed at me."
Wilkerson later said he turned the good-natured ribbing on some of the other Yankees in the dugout:
"There were a few snickers," Wilkerson said. "I made them know that there were a couple guys in that New York Post picture too. It wasn’t just me. So I let them know about it too."
'Shut up frat boy'
Add a letter and everything changes, and starts to make more sense.
No one can call Aaron Boone fat. But they could call him frat. Boone went to school on the west coast at USC, and he fits the bill of a frat boy far more than Schneider does.
It's not just Boone, either. Schneider could have been talking to any number of people on the field with a comment like this. It just works better.
'Shut up bat boy'
This one is less likely. It looks like a clear "F" sound from Schneider.
But the idea of an MLB manager mixing it up with a bat boy is objectively funny. So we can at least entertain the possibility.
MORE: Blue Jays ask MLB to look into whether Aaron Judge was cheating
The Yankees and Jays have two games left in this four-game series in Toronto and then they won't see each other again in September, when they play each other in two series over the course of 10 days.
With that in mind, don't expect this series to let up. They have a lot of frustration to outlet before a four-month break from each other.
