Red Sox's Alex Verdugo on having ball thrown at him at Yankee Stadium: 'Fans in the wrong on that one'

Tom Gatto

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Red Sox's Alex Verdugo on having ball thrown at him at Yankee Stadium: 'Fans in the wrong on that one' image

Red Sox outfielder Alex Verdugo was livid after being struck in the back by a ball thrown from the left-field bleachers at Yankee Stadium during Saturday night's game. He cursed at the fans who were yelling at him while security tried to find the thrower.

Boston manager Alex Cora briefly pulled his players off the field after the incident.

A spectator was eventually ordered to leave the bleachers. The Yankees and MLB imposed a lifetime ban from stadiums on that fan Sunday. The person is prohibited from attending games at all 30 MLB parks.

Verdugo was calmer by the time he spoke with reporters after the game, but he still wasn't thrilled.

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"The fans are in the wrong on that one," he said. "I feel like anyone who gets hit with a ball like that, it's kind of a free-for-all, just let it all hang out and let your emotions go.

"I'm just happy that nothing went from it, nothing transpired, nobody got hurt. I didn't get hurt. We'll look back at it, I'll laugh about it. I'm sure people will start messing around with some people in our clubhouse about it, too. But, yeah, we've got to clean it up."

Verdugo said (per The Boston Globe) that the problem started when he threw the ball toward a Red Sox fan after using it to warm up between innings, only to have a Yankees fan intercept it. Other fans, Verdugo said, egged on the Yankees fan to "Throw it back," so the fan did. 

As emotional as Verdugo was in the moment, he knew he couldn't go too far.

"We're the people in the spotlight, and if we do something, we look like s—," he said. "We look like the bad guys. But at the end of the day, people need to understand, we're people, as well."

Tom Gatto

Tom Gatto Photo

Tom Gatto joined The Sporting News as a senior editor in 2000 after 12 years at The Herald-News in Passaic, N.J., where he served in a variety of roles including sports editor, and a brief spell at APBNews.com in New York, where he worked as a syndication editor. He is a 1986 graduate of the University of South Carolina.