Brett Lawrie calls out Royals fans after ugly series in Kansas City
The series is over, the suspensions have been doled out, you’d think that now maybe the bad blood between the Oakland Athletics and Kansas City Royals could die down a little bit, right?
Nope.
A’s third baseman Brett Lawrie — either the chief antagonist or the victim, depending on which side you’re on — spoke out Tuesday, specifically calling out Kansas City fans for making things worse between the two teams. Shame on the fans, he said, and shame on the Royals players.
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If you missed the fireworks: Lawrie took out Alcides Escobar with a slide at second base Friday. He was then hit by Yordano Ventura on Saturday, then thrown at by Kelvin Herrera on Sunday. Benches cleared twice, multiple people were ejected and both Ventura and Herrera were disciplined by MLB on Tuesday.
Rather than just moving on after punishments were announced, Lawrie then told Jane Lee of MLB.com:
“That was probably the worst series of baseball that I’ve ever played,” said Lawrie. “I don’t think you can even call it baseball, because it wasn’t. I’ve never been a part of anything like that in three days in my entire life. It wasn’t baseball. It didn’t feel like baseball.
“And the way their fans approached everything, I hated it. The way their fans were antagonizing everything, you know, I got a first-pitch missed curveball up in my head and everyone leaps up in their seat like Bruce Buffer is about to come out. That’s not how we’re doing things.
“Shame on their fans for antagonizing everything that went on there, because that had a lot to do with it. Shame on the players and their team that went with it. I’m just glad it’s all over and we’re moving on. We don’t have to see them till June, and we’re just going to continue to go out and continue playing baseball.” Well then. He’s right that Royals fans had been standing up for their players, and getting called out like this sure isn’t going to quiet them down.
In fairness to Lawrie and the A’s, the Royals also haven’t moved on yet. On Monday, manager Ned Yost was still sending shots at Lawrie.
The odds that things will be friendly when the two teams meet again in June are getting slimmer by the interview.
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Mike Oz is the editor of Big League Stew on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @MikeOz
