The games that were being played in empty stadiums were a target mess for the MLB 2020 season, but there was at least one silver line: there were no game stops for the general madness of the fans.
The same cannot be said for Friday night’s game of Yankee lightning at Yankee Stadium, where local fans weren’t too kind to Tampa Bay with an 8-2 lead at the end of the eighth inning. When Clint Frazier hit Trevor Richards, the game stopped when the fans started throwing basketballs on the field.
Here are a few more angles of the camera, showing Rays players walking towards the center of the diamond, presumably to prevent them from throwing a rogue shot:
The Yankees would go on to lose 8-2, dropping their third straight game and sixth in their last eight to take their record to 5-8. It was an ugly game from the start: New York made three mistakes and amassed just three hits, at one point 15 consecutive batters without a batter hitting safely.
He was the last in a series dominated by lightning between the rivals of the division. Since the start of last season, the Yankees won 3-11 against Tampa Bay, surpassing themselves in a total of 24 runs.
After the game, Yankees manager Aaron Boone lamented the incident and considered it a negative aspect for everyone.
“You hate to see this,” Boone said. by Bryan Hoch of MLB.com. “Unfortunately a handful of people end up doing it and it seems bad for everyone.”
It’s unclear how baseball started, but the incident raises some pertinent questions. Was this a default tactic? Where did all these balls come from? And what were the fans trying to achieve?
The answer to that last question is probably as simple as expressing your displeasure with an unfortunate Yankees team that entered the season with World Series aspirations. While the frustration is understandable (watching Michael Wacha scratch your dreaded lineup doesn’t sound very funny), there’s a better way to express that exasperation.
Maybe they can try a grievance issue next time? Maybe around an aluminum stick?