Anthony Rendon’s Return to Action May Be Interrupted by His Lapse in Judgment
When the Angels signed Anthony Rendon to a seven-year, $245 million deal in December 2019, the expectation was that he’d be a difference-maker, augmenting a lineup that already included Mike Trout and Shohei Ohtani and helping the Halos return to the postseason after a five-year absence. Though he played up to his capabilities in the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, Rendon’s last two years have been greatly limited due to injuries, and so far his ’23 season is off to a less-than-auspicious start.
On Opening Day, following a 2–1 loss to the A’s at Oakland’s Ring Central Coliseum, Rendon was involved in an altercation with a fan wearing an A’s hat as he exited the field. Apparently displeased by something the fan yelled, Rendon confronted him, reaching up and grabbing him by the shirt, then taking an open-handed swipe at him. In the video that circulated after the game, you can hear Rendon’s side of the story, not all of which is safe for work:
Wow! Uncool! pic.twitter.com/FNRFWL46A0
— PetrosAndMoneyShow (@PetrosAndMoney) March 31, 2023
Here’s another angle:
Here’s another angle of the Anthony Rendon altercation with a fan pic.twitter.com/BpmmsyGFEp
— Talkin’ Baseball (@TalkinBaseball_) April 1, 2023
Whatever the fan said to Rendon isn’t part of either video, but even if it were, it’s unlikely to justify the third baseman’s actions; a player simply can’t mix it up in a physical altercation with a fan, period. Rendon is lucky he didn’t actually hit the man, because he’d almost certainly face a more severe fine and suspension than he might receive. As it is, both Major League Baseball and the Oakland Police Department are investigating the incident, with the latter saying it was investigating a battery:
When asked if Oakland Police Department was investigating the incident with Anthony Rendon, this is what the department said: pic.twitter.com/2If9BU23D6
— Sam Blum (@SamBlum3) March 31, 2023
The Angels and A’s were off on Friday. On Saturday, the team made Rendon available to the media prior to the game, but he repeatedly said that he couldn’t comment on an ongoing investigation. Manager Phil Nevin and general manager Perry Minasian made similar no-comments, with the former saying that “at some point” he would address the matter.
Beyond the altercation (and, if we’re being cheeky, including it), Rendon is so far hitless with a walk, a sacrifice fly and two strikeouts in eight plate appearances during this young season. He started in Saturday’s 13–1 win but was pulled in the sixth inning, having banged his left knee on the tarp in pursuit of a foul ball. He sat out Sunday’s contest after getting treatment; the 32-year-old third baseman said that he was well enough to play but that it was already a planned day off for him.
Rendon is coming off not one but two disappointing, injury-shortened seasons in a row, which makes it easy to forget just how he earned that big contract, which still has the fourth-highest average annual value ($35 million) of any position player besides Aaron Judge ($40 million), Trout ($35.54 million), and Carlos Correa ($35.1 million). From 2017 to ’19, Rendon hit for a 145 wRC+ (eighth in the majors) with 18.7 WAR (tied for fifth) and capped that by helping the Nationals win the World Series in 2019, driving in a series-high eight runs, including six (with two homers) in Games 6 and 7. After signing with the Angels, he hit a robust .286/.418/.497 in 52 games in 2020, placing seventh in the league with a 152 wRC+ and tying Trout for third with 2.5 WAR; unfortunately, terrible run prevention cost the Angels a playoff spot.
In 2021, Rendon was sent to the injured list by groin and hamstring strains as well as a knee contusion; he played in just 58 games, none after July 4, and while rehabbing from the hamstring injury suffered a bout of right hip impingement that necessitated season-ending surgery in August. He hit just .240/.329/.382 with six homers, setting career lows with a 94 RC+ and 0.1 WAR. Last year, he landed on the IL due to right wrist inflammation in late May and played just four games in mid-June upon returning before undergoing surgery to repair a subluxation of a tendon. The surgery was supposed to be season-ending, but Rendon healed more quickly than expected and was able to return near the end of the year. That allowed him to serve a five-game suspension for his role in a June 26 benches-clearing brawl with the Mariners and then play in two games, during which he went 0-for-4 with three strikeouts.
If Rendon’s season-ending coda wasn’t exactly impressive for its performance, it at least sent him home “just having the peace of mind of going into the winter and having a normal offseason,” as he said at the time. “It was good to show myself going into the offseason that I could play… It wasn’t the greatest playing those last few games, but just to have that in the back of your mind knowing that I had another three months knowing I could continue to get stronger.”
Following a normal offseason, Rendon hit a sizzling .500/.561/.806 in 41 PA of Cactus League play. Obviously, one can’t put a ton of stock in such numbers, but they at least back up his assertion that he was fully healthy. For what it’s worth, he averaged an exit velocity of 94.4 mph on the 11 balls he hit in parks equipped with Statcast. As Davy Andrews noted last week, there’s at least some signal within the noise when it comes to spring exit velos, albeit at the 15-batted ball level.
Rendon is rejoining what projects to be the strongest Angels squad in recent years, at least going by their preseason Playoff Odds projection of 83.5 wins, which translates to an 18.5% chance of winning the AL West and a 44.7% of reaching the postseason for the first time since 2014. With the offseason additions of free agents Brandon Drury and Gio Urshela, the Angels have upgraded their infield, notably adding some depth that seems designed to insure against another Rendon outage. With first baseman Jared Walsh sidelined by headaches and insomnia, Drury is starting at first base instead of second, though hopefully that’s a short-term issue.
There aren’t a ton of small-sample positives to be taken from Rendon’s performances in the past two seasons, but a few things do stand out. Even while swinging and missing more than ever last year (7.1% swinging-strike rate), he remained an exceptionally disciplined hitter, chasing just 23.4% of pitches, walking 11.9% of the time and striking out 18.1% of the time (his highest mark since 2016). His 8.3% barrel rate was his highest since 2019 and would have placed in the 54th percentile; as it was, it exceeded his previous Statcast career mark by 0.9 points.
Considering that he missed well over 200 games over the past two seasons and will turn 33 on June 6, Rendon still projects to be a force if he’s healthy. His Depth Charts projection forecasts a .264/.359/.442 line in 131 games; his 128 wRC+ matches that of Manny Machado for the seventh-highest among third basemen, and his 3.8 WAR is tied for eighth. The systems don’t know any details about Rendon’s physical condition, but even while accounting for the significant outages of his past two seasons, they project him for something near a star-level contribution, which shouldn’t be too surprising given that he reached or exceeded 5.9 WAR four times from 2014 to ’19 and on a prorated basis would have cleared that as well in ’20.
With Ohtani and Trout coming off exceptional showings on the big stage of the World Baseball Classic, the Angels do have a certain aura of optimism surrounding them for a change. A healthy Rendon should be part of that, but we’ll have to wait and see whether his lapse of good judgment in Oakland costs him some playing time.
Brooklyn-based Jay Jaffe is a senior writer for FanGraphs, the author of The Cooperstown Casebook (Thomas Dunne Books, 2017) and the creator of the JAWS (Jaffe WAR Score) metric for Hall of Fame analysis. He founded the Futility Infielder website (2001), was a columnist for Baseball Prospectus (2005-2012) and a contributing writer for Sports Illustrated (2012-2018). He has been a recurring guest on MLB Network and a member of the BBWAA since 2011, and a Hall of Fame voter since 2021. Follow him on BlueSky @jayjaffe.bsky.social.
It was such a weird altercation. Rendon always been pretty mild-mannered, seems like the type of guy who wouldn’t even cuss. It looked so weird too, almost like he was smiling and laughing and messing around with a buddy. While that clearly wasn’t the case, it was just incredibly odd all the way around.
Seemed ordinary to me. Not a justification…but that type of altercation plays out all the time.
The two things that come to mind when I hear Rendon mentioned are “good player” and “totally chill”. He gave an umpire an astonished look after a called third strike when he was still a Nat and the broadcasters joked about how bad of a call it had to be to get even that reaction from him.
That said, I’m amazed at the discipline players usually exercise when fans say some pretty heinous stuff to them. We don’t know what the fan said, but it was probably something that in any other interaction with a stranger he wouldn’t have said. Somehow paying for a seat gives us permission to be abusive jerks.
I’m sure most players are able to easily tune it out, especially when you think about the fact that people in the stands are chumps who didn’t play past Pony League. It’s like a child trying to insult me. I consider the source and don’t care lol.
I would certainly agree that it must place a lot of emotional strain on players to hear the things fans shout at them. Where you lose me is the part about that being connected to hitting people. Surely not hitting people does not require any special “discipline.” Not hitting people is my expectation for 100% of adults 100% of the time, no matter what words are said to them by whom.
From the video, Rendon believes that the fan called him a b*tch. Not certain anything else was said.
To be honest, if that is all he said, pretty bland stuff.
Again, not justifying the fan…just, not a lot of heat on that insult.
So if calling someone a bitch is justification for grasping a 60 year olds neck and attempting to pull them out of the stands, and then attempt to punch them, what is justification for someone calling you a moutherfucker with their hands wrapped around your neck? Because that’s what Rendown did. I’d have ripped his fingernails out if he’d have done that to my father.
IMO everyone is making a mountain out of a molehill because they’re interpreting the swipe as more violent than it was intended.
I agree, even if he had hit him it wouldn’t of been much, but he would of gotten in trouble. Obviously a suspension is coming, guessing 5 to 20 games. But the weirdest part to me was the smile. It almost looked like two pals messing around. It wasn’t, but looked that way.
The smile looks more “I could kick this guy’s ass, hell I *should* kick this guy’s ass” than “this guy is my buddy and we’re messing around”.
The initial grab was forceful. That second angle gives you a good sense for how quickly and forcefully Rendon pulled the dude.
That swipe at the end looks to have missed.
Not certain of the law in CA, but that initial grab could be battery.
He grabbed him by the jersey. Under CA law, that’s battery and there’s clear video evidence.
Technically true, but 100 times out of 100, prosecutorial discretion would be used here, and he would not be charged.
And he shouldn’t be. It would serve no purpose. Rendon’s suspension, which he deserves, is a perfectly adequate way for him to suffer consequences for what he did.
Yep – there’s a pretty clear dividing line in this section between people who have ever been in a physical altercation, and people having meltdowns over Rendon being a violent criminal.
If Rendon had wanted to hurt the heckler, the heckler would be hurt right now.
…and Rendon absolutely deserves to be suspended.
To me it looked like he was trying to knock the guy’s hat off with the swipe, not actually hit him. Even if he hadn’t pulled back, I don’t think Rendon would have made contact with the fan, just the bill of his hat. Obviously Rendon shouldn’t have even done that, but the claims that Rendon was trying to punch the fan or attack him or whatnot (not made here, but they are around), seem overblown.
When I first saw the video I assumed a fine, but no suspension. No one was hurt here and the fan got what he wanted out of the encounter. He was heckling Rendon because he wanted a reaction and he got one that will make for a great story he will tell at the bar or every time he goes to a ballgame.
While it may technically qualify as battery under California law because he grabbed his shirt, this is the kind of encounter that happens every weekend at most bars after everyone is a few too many deep. The fans that are heckling players as they go to the clubhouse tend the be the same group that come to the ballpark for the drinking moreso than the baseball. That doesn’t excuse Rendon’s actions, but I struggle to see how this is worse than intentionally throwing at someone or initiating a brawl which rarely result in more than a 3-7 game suspension and involve the active attempt to hurt others which really isn’t present here.
5 game suspension and a fine which seems like a completely reasonable punishment. I guess I should have just waited until the ruling instead of listening to the loudest voices.
That looked more s—t eating grin than “we’re all having fun here” grin
The face of a man who is making a mistake and knows it but has to follow through
The fan said “nice game, pretty boy!”
If only Rendon had spit on him from a gravelly road!
I’M HIT!!
He must have caught a glimpse of him when he poured a beer on his head.
I can’t imagine what MLB is waiting for. It’s not like this is a he said/he said situation – the video is quite clear he grabbed the guy and got in his face. Suspend the him already.
MLB does not seem proactive in these types of things and wait often to see if another video angle comes out that makes it look worse or police to act.
Agreed. MLB, NFL, NBA… they aren’t going to turn around and suspend a guy the next day unless it’s brutal, like a blatant blindside NHL hit or helmet-to-helmet in the NFL. Needless to say, there apparently are some Angels fans here who want to see more evidence come out.
I thought NBA was a little more aggressive with player fan interactions after the Ron Artest situation, but that was a longtime ago and I haven’t watched much NBA lately.
Given that Bradley Beal recently had a far more… active dispute with a fan than Rendon and he still hasn’t gotten any punishment yet? Not really. If you actually hurt someone, you get it, but otherwise they seem like they couldn’t care less.
Of all the extremely violent things that have happened in baseball history, this is pretty marginal, if not a downright nonissue. The mlbpa isn’t going to just let the mlb run all over him
I mean, if you call another man a b**** (which is what the fan said according to the video), you should expect a violent answer in return. Words mean things. I don’t know why fans think they get to just insult other people like they not people.
The fan shouldn’t have called him that, obviously. But if a guy calls me that on the street and I react the same way Rendon did, I could still get in some trouble.
Yep. Words like assault have meaning.
He just grabbed him by the collar. That’s getting checked, not assaulted. I really dont know why people are acting like he snuck him and beat him bloody or something.
The point here should be that a guy wouldn’t call you that on the street, this was done with the fan expected immunity for behaving as a belligerent
People get called names on the street all the time. People that physically retaliate have the chance of getting in trouble, those that don’t, don’t.
I’m not supporting the fan at all, but I’m not supporting the player either.
Don’t know what streets you been walking down brother
To be clear I’m also not “supporting” rendons actions. But the context has to be considered. And the severity of what took place really shouldn’t be overblown – the guy had his collar grabbed – this isn’t a ron artest situation. This is a league where domestic abuse violators serve 30 game suspensions (that’s what ozuna got right?)and then are welcomed back with open arms. Do we want to create an equivalency between those things? Of course not. This pales in comparison to heinous offenses like that. The dude was being an idiot, and got his collar grabbed. End of story
Rendon called him a motherfucker. Does that mean the fan is now authorized to go on the field and attack him? Or just Rendon is allowed to go into the stands and batter old men when he gets name called ?
If he wants to, yeah. The dude clearly didn’t want anything to do with that action, so he should’ve kept his mouth shut. Hopefully he learned his lesson. Don’t insult people and you won’t get that energy back. It’s very simple.
You’re absolutely right, the fan wanted nothing to do with fighting Rendon. That’s called battery when you don’t want to fight someone, and they grasp at your neck, try to pull you out of the stands, and attempt to hit you.
Rendon will spend a few nights in jail this off-season. That’s what happens when adults attack strangers. When your teacher lets you out of detention, you’re free to look up what battery is.
If he wanted nothing to do with fighting Rendon, why did he insult him by calling him a b****? He was being disrespectful, got a glimpse of what the consequences of his actions could be, and got scared. Seems to me like he should’ve kept his mouth shut lol.
Also, I never insulted you, so idk why you felt the need to be condescending. Talk to me on here like you would in person, bc that is the kind of comment that can get you smacked (by a good chunk of people) in real life.
I’m sure Rendon was hoping he’d try.
If the suspension is any more significant than a pitcher gets for throwing at someone, it will be completely absurd. The fan inserted himself into the situation, and expected that the normal rules of how to engage with other humans didn’t apply to rendon. People don’t usually scream insults at other humans, because they’d expect retaliation. Imagine this scenario playing out in civil court, or better yet, judge Judy. “So why’d you hurl insults at him? Are you hurt? No, so what are we doing here?”
This wasn’t an assault, or anything close to it.
Again, compare it to having a baseball thrown at you at 99 mph. It should be a no game suspension.
He beckoned the guy over, grabbed him, and then swiped at him. I mean, you can think it was morally justified, if you want, but he acted willfully and clearly had the ability to inflict violence. There’s no self-defense argument either. It was an assault. Maybe not one that law enforcement will or even should bother with, but it absolutely was an assault under the law.
No, it’s really not. No court of law would ever try someone for what transpired here, and no police officer would ever book someone for what happened. Because the dude is not hurt – he was not assaulted
Assault includes “unwanted physical contact”. The person doesn’t have to be hurt to have been assaulted, according to the law.
Maybe in the Hamptons, or somewhere like it, a cop would book someone for this. But really, if you think this would ever make it to court, or get someone into jail, you aren’t familiar with the criminal justice system. Again, I’ll use throwing a 99mph pitch at someone as a barometer for assault and a suspension. That could definitely be tried criminally. but unless you live in the sleepiest town on earth, these are not things that make it into court, for better or for worse (in this case, I’d say for better, which is not something I’d usually say about our criminal justice system)
Technically, assault doesn’t necessarily even need to include physical contact let alone injury. It can include the threat of physical contact or violence. Battery involves physical contact. Injury determines the degree of the charge.
Technically, the law says a lot of things!
Dude, you aren’t a lawyer and should stop pretending you know what you’re talking about.
lol what on earth you said the exact same thing as me further up the comments. We agree no one would ever get charged for it
No, because what I said was true and what you said was false. Do you see how those two things can’t be the same?
Yuck. Rendon didn’t impulsively grab the guy while going through a crowd. He stopped, went back, and beckoned the guy over… I realize the fan probably was being abusive, but Rendon consciously chose to assault him. He’s lucky the fan didn’t trip from the force of the grab and smash into the railing.
He didn’t assault him man, he just grabbed his collar. More fans need to get checked like that for insulting athletes tbh
The fan probably called him “Hollywood” and Rendon can’t stand that
I’m an ER doctor. We get yelled at all the time. Pretty much every shift someone says something a lot worse than b*tch to me. Some of these people are mentally ill or don’t understand what they’re doing, but honestly most of them are just a-holes.
Pretty regularly, someone will take a swing at me or one of my nurses. The one thing we can NEVER do is attempt to strike them back–unless they are literally trying to kill us. No matter what you’re called, you can’t grab or threaten someone. I would lose my job and my license if I did–and I’ve seen that happen. We are well-paid and have security to deal with those situations.
The same applies to professional athletes. The fan was probably an a-hole. But Rendon is very well-compensated not to respond in that way, and there are security guards. Players can’t lose their cool and get in altercations with fans–if they do, they should be punished pretty severely. My guess is he gets 10 games plus.
I’m also in a caring profession working with severely disabled folks and see many of the same things… which is why I know what actual assaults look like, and you should too. Rendon isn’t in a position where public safety, or the health or well being of others is entrusted to him. He’s just a dude.
You can judge him all you want, but it’s just moralizing
Where I work, the assaults usually are with guns and knives. Those people should go to jail, for a long time. I’m not suggesting that Rendon be legally charged even if what he did meets the legal definition of assault.
I’m suggesting that he crossed a line of professionalism. He is a professional athlete. Professionals should not insult or threaten their clients (in his case fans; in my case patients) who directly or indirectly pay for their livelihood. Doing so is unethical. If I called my patient a “crazy meth-head POS” to their face it might be verifiably true, but if I got censured I’d deserve every bit of it.
There’s no caregiver-patient relationship in baseball, but there’s still professional conduct. He’ll deserve the suspension he gets.
I’m suggesting he should be legally charged.
If the fan had done it to him, the fan would already be in prison. You can’t grab a stranger by the neck and then try to hit them, and not be arrested.
Jesus Christ, attitudes like this are the reason there are 2million people incarcerated in this country
Rendon’s an idiot, and his suspension is well-merited…but some of the reactions here are insane.
Major grass deprivation.
you sure it has nothing to do with a for-profit prison system, an unjust war on drugs, or systemic racism? I don’t mean to be rude, but you’re spouting a whole bunch of things about the law…none of which seems to be true. he’s 6’1″, 200 lbs and is a professional athlete. good lord.
There is no way in hell the fan “would be in prison.”
The exact same interaction (drunk asshole talks shit and the other guy grabs the loudmouth, but doesn’t injure him) happens thousands of times every weekend, in every city on the planet.
disagree. if a fan grabbed a professional athlete by his collar aggressively and took a swipe at him, he ABSOLUTELY would have gotten arrested. followed by a whole slate of deserved commentary about the need to increase security, ensure the safety of athletes, and the dangers of fan belligerence.
Of if he went on the field to propose to his girl, he may just get destroyed by a security guard!
If a fan grabbed a professional athlete by his collar aggressively and took a swipe at him, the cops would be the least of his issues.
If Rendon were trying to hurt that idiot, he would have.
…and I also think Rendon’s behavior was inappropriate, and that he deserves his suspension and fine!
Whenever Rendon smiles and laughs it’s like his “Serenity Now!”
Players need to have it engrained into their minds that they should not put hands on fans at any time, for any reason. I get it – some fans get super nasty, super personal, say things that are way out of line, etc. – but that’s what security is for… call security over and get them to kick the person/people out of the building. If you, as a player, choose to engage, everyone and their mother is gonna capture it on camera.
You are absolutely right. That said we’re all human and subject to emotion, and professional sports can get pretty emotional. Rendon absolutely should have controlled himself, but given enough mouthy fans something like this is bound to happen occasionally.
Wonder what the result would be if a fan called a black player the N word, and the player beat him to a pulp
you’re trying to start something here that’s not an issue in this.
Not really. Just interested.
You’re the early favorite for “worst fangraphs commenter of the year”
no you’re not. but you really DON’T have to wonder, guy…black players have heard this sooooo many times in the history of MLB and have NEVER done what Rendon did. why try to fictionalize something that has already, factually, occurred numerous times?!
Cesar Cedeno did..actually, he did much worse. (& the guy totally deserved it)
& some long term good came of it. It got MLB to think “Why do we let fans sit in the front row & tell obscenities at players all game” & how do we make sure this stuff is dealt with before a player has had enough & takes matters into their own hands.
Marcus Smart went into the stands 10 years ago when someone called him the n-word and spat at him.
*EXTREMELY AH, THE METS VOICE*
Ah, the Angels.
Wait, this is the same “mild-mannered” Rendon who went hard at Jesse Winker last year with his arm in a cast?
What I find hard to believe is that the Nationals won a World Series as recently as three and a half years ago.
royals fan here.. not that hard to believe.
He grabbed a 60 year old man by the neck and then swung at him. Deserves to spend a couple months in lockup, like any other 30 year old that commits battery against a stranger twice their age. But undoubtedly he’ll be fined, and be out a couple minutes worth of dollars.
If a fan ever reached out to a player and grabbed them by the neck, the fan would be imprisoned.
I thought the guy looked 30-40. He seemed like the son of the older guy next to him.
I read 57 years old.
So…old enough not to verbally assault players from the stands?
Or at least old enough to be able to handle his liquor?
There’s plenty of videos of rendon committing battery. There’s no videos supporting his claims of being called a bitch. Even if there were, you can’t physically attack people for being called a name.
MTG called me a pedophile for being a Democrat. Do I get to slap that cunt now, or is it still a crime?
in my opinion you should calm down
And there’s plenty of comments here showing that you desperately need to touch grass, my son.
I’m not your son fuckwad. That’s a very demeaning thing to say to a black man.
I don’t have a lot to add, obviously Rendon can’t be off doing this. This isn’t like Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb’s time. Threatening a fan is a really bad look.
I do wish, however, teams had a slightly more aggressive response to deal with abusive fans. I know that they’re paying customers and given the amount of beer some of them drink they may be lucrative customers but I certainly wouldn’t want to sit next to the guy yelling nasty things at players on the field.
I know it’s not going to happen….but is there an out here for the Angels to get out of this contract?
Committing battery against a fan certainly seems like it could trigger some clauses that might open the door to voiding the contract.
Seems unlikely that they would want to weaken the roster in Ohtani’s walk year…..but just a thought.
I am guessing that the Angels are stuck with him, even if they felt that his behavior warranted a trade out of town. That contract is hefty.
I meant voiding the contract, not trading him. I could see them viewing this as opportunistic chance to legally get out of a bad contract.
No chance. Honestly I’d doubt this would be possible if actually did beat the shit out of the guy. I mean, when have you seen contracts voided before? It’s always talked about for this reason or that reason (Pujols age was a fraud, remember that one?) but it doesn’t happen.
yeah i was under the impression the Dodgers voided T. Bauer’s contract…but nope, they are still paying him.
Five games for Rendon. I didn’t think the MLB would move this fast but there it is.
Pretty reasonable.
From Wiki: “False imprisonment or unlawful imprisonment occurs when a person intentionally restricts another person’s movement within any area without legal authority, justification, or the retrained person’s permission.”
(emphasis mine)
Cmon man.
genocide
jĕn′ə-sīd″
noun
1. The systematic and widespread extermination or attempted extermination of a national, racial, religious, or ethnic group.
2. The systematic killing of a racial or cultural group.
3. The systematic killing of substantial numbers of people on the basis of ethnicity, religion, political opinion, social status, or other particularity.
I watched Rendon in DC and he was the most laid back guy on either team. Totally ice water in his veins in the 2019 playoffs, so he was a guy I least expected to snap like this. Weird. Wonder what was said (no excuse to react to it) and what’s going on inside him to snap like that. He got off light – 4-game suspension. Should be grateful it wasn’t 20 (or more!).
Rendon broke the cardinal rule, no touchy touchy. We don’t touch the players and they don’t touch us. Once a hand is laid, it’s on. This interaction (and his role in the fight vs the Mariners last year) tells me all there is to know about Rendon. Scum.
Big fan of talk shit, get hit, and that was a swipe to make the dude flinch. Obviously it’s a bad look for Rendon and the league, but I’d be more than happy to sacrifice 4 game checks to put an unruly fan in his place if I was guaranteed 9 figures. Screw the “customer is always right” mentality that enables grown men to think they’re immune from the consequences of their actions.
Bingo. If the fan didn’t want to have an actual confrontation, why start the trouble in the first place? People need to learn to just shut up.
You can tell from the comments who has and has not worked a customer-facing job.
No matter how you look at it, coming in apparently aggressive contact with a fan in the stands is a huge no-no these days. I’m guessing the league pushes for a 7 game suspension plus a fine. After an appeal the MLBPA should be able to get that dropped to 4-5.