PHILADELPHIA (AP) – Hey leather lung, yer out!
An unruly fan attending Tuesday night’s game between the San Francisco Giants and Philadelphia Phillies was escorted from his seat in the sixth inning shortly after a verbal confrontation with an umpire.
Plate ump Bob Davidson stopped the game, walked toward where the fan was sitting and had words with him after the man was yelling loudly in Davidson’s direction. The fan was sitting 15 rows from the field behind the visitors’ dugout.
Davidson said the fan heckled him for two straight batters, but he halted the game with the next hitter up when Davidson felt the fan made a sexual reference and used foul language.
“You could have your wife, girlfriend, kids; they buy tickets,” Davidson told a pool reporter. “They don’t have to come here and listen to that.”
Shortly after the spat, a Phillies usher approached the fan, who quieted down. A short time later, another Phillies employee approached the man and escorted him out of his seat.
A Phillies spokesperson said during the game that Davidson complained to team security about the fan’s language and, when approached, the fan agreed to leave on his own.
Davidson, though, said afterward he asked to have the fan ejected.
“I didn’t know why security just doesn’t do that on their own,” Davidson said. “There were kids there and young girls there.”
Davidson said his actions drew applause from fans – something he rarely hears in Philadelphia.
“And people cheered me, which is unusual in this town for me,” he said.