Former Astros center fielder Myles Straw was so enraged by Yankees fans, he climbed the left-field wall at Yankee Stadium to get in the face of some unruly spectators Saturday afternoon.
The craziness ensued when the Yankees’ Isiah Kiner-Falefa hit a game-tying double that sent Cleveland left fielder Steven Kwan crashing into the right-field wall. As medical staff checked on Kwan, fans in the Yankee Stadium bleachers started taunting him. That caused Straw and Guardians right fielder Oscar Mercado to come to their teammates’ defense. Eventually, Straw scaled the wall to show Yankees fans he’d had enough. Mercado pulled Straw down, but that lit the fuse.
Gleyber Torres, the next batter, delivered a walk-off base hit to right field, which inspired Yankees fans in the bleachers to shower the Cleveland outfielders with water bottles and beer cans.
Straw and Mercado both had to be held back by teammates from going up the wall again. Eventually, Yankees players, including Aaron Judge and Giancarlo Stanton jogged to the outfield to try to settle down the fans.
"Kwan is the nicest guy on the planet and that’s my teammate, that’s my brother, and some of the things that were said to him, just for me, wasn’t going to fly," Straw told reporters in the clubhouse after the Guardians' 5-4 loss. "So, my emotions got to me a little bit, but at that point, I feel like as a Yankees fan, you’ve got to be excited for your team, you should be cheering, and you should never prey on … there’s a guy who went head-first into a hard wall. There’s no business saying the things those guys said to him. It got to me a little bit. I said what I said, and if I were to do it again, I probably would have said the same thing. It’s my guy. At that point, just cheer. Be happy your team tied the game up and be a normal baseball fan and just enjoy what’s going on."
Straw initially told reporters he didn't want to talk and called Yankees fans the "worst fanbase on the planet," but later decided to talk, saying he's never seen any other team's fans act like that.
"They chirp, which is totally fine. You have the fun little group in center every game here and they’re fine. They can flip me off, they can say stuff about my family. I really don’t care about that, but when someone’s hurt you don’t prey on that. You just keep your mouth shut and let them recover," Straw said. "If they want to chirp, then chirp, boo me, do whatever you want, I really don’t care, but that’s nonsense for someone to be hurt and for you to say things like that."
Mercado echoed Straw's sentiments.
“Kwan was a little shaken up and had some cuts on his face and there was a specific Yankee fan in left field that was celebrating Kwan getting hurt," Mercado said. “It’s almost like, it’s acts of violence. You can’t say stuff like that, especially when someone gets hurt.”
Mercado also said he nearly got hit in the face with a beer can during the fans' postgame celebration.
“You certainly don’t want to put anyone in danger. I love the intensity, but you can’t be throwing stuff out on the field,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said.
Notably, Carlos Beltran, who works for the YES Network during some Yankees games, said on the broadcast, "I love the reaction of the fans," after Torres' walk-off single. Beltran retired after his 2017 championship season with the Astros, a year before Straw made his big-league debut in Houston.
Straw played four seasons with the Astros before being traded to Cleveland for reliever Phil Maton last July.
Straw, who went to an Astros World Series game as a fan last year in Atlanta, hit .285 with 13 stolen bases in 60 games for Cleveland last season. So far this year, he’s hitting .296 (16-for-54) with 14 runs scored, which leads the major leagues. The Guardians signed the 27-year-old Straw to a five-year, $25 million contract extension earlier this month.
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