Baseball fans exchanged a flurry of punches in the stands during Thursday’s contest between the New York Yankees and Los Angeles Angels at Yankee Stadium in the Bronx
Fans exchanged punches during Thursday’s game between the Yankees and Angels(Image: X)
Tensions boiled over during a steamy day in the Bronx as Yankees fans came to blows in the stands on Thursday.
In the sixth inning of the Yankees’ 11-4 defeat to the Los Angeles Angels — whose players recently got into a separate on-field scuffle — several fans exchanged a flurry of punches in the second deck along the left field line.
At the start of the skirmish, one patron donning a gray shirt socked another individual in the chin before being pulled from behind by his collar. The latter promptly retaliated by clobbering the former in the back of the head as he kneeled on the floor.
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Further down the steps, a fan wearing an Aaron Judge football jersey swung at a man in an Angels shirt, but soon crumpled to the ground upon being hit in the face.
Onlookers did little to hide their shock, with one person shouting, “Holy s—!” and another adding: “Why are you running bro?”
Cooler heads ultimately prevailed, as fellow attendees rushed to break up the fight and restore peace.
As fans turned on one another in the crowd, the Yankees were busy imploding on the field. Angels third baseman Oswald Peraza ripped a double into right field to score Mike Trout and even the score at three apiece.
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In the ensuing at-bat, Vaughn Grissom’s grounder deflected off the glove of Amed Rosario and into left field, scoring Jo Adell. Josh Lowe scored two more runs with a broken bat single into center to give Los Angeles a 6-3 lead.
Though Ben Rice clapped back with a homer in the bottom of the sixth, the contest turned into a blowout following Trout’s fifth homer of the four-game series and a grand slam off the bat of Adell.
To add insult to injury, Yankees manager Aaron Boone was tossed by home plate umpire Will Little for arguing a balk call in the middle of the eighth inning and at the end of the frame.
“I still haven’t gotten good clarity, because of course they got overly sensitive when I was as calm as could be,” he told reporters during a postgame press conference.
Aaron Boone was ejected from Thursday’s contest for arguing a balk call(Image: Getty Images)
“I wasn’t out there arguing; I just wanted to hear their explanation. I’m going to wait to get more clarity. I think it’s a fine play.”
With two runners on and two outs, reliever Ryan Yarbrough attempted to pick off Zach Neto at first. Boone believed that the throw over was a legal move, and grew agitated once Little refused to give a proper explanation for why it was called a balk.
“Will gave it to me behind home plate, but then I wanted what I thought should have been more of an explanation,” Boone continued. “So I went out to talk to Ryan out at first and [crew chief Lance Barksdale] cut me off.”