Dodgers: Yasiel Puig gives fans the finger, should be suspended
The Dodgers’ Yasiel Puig was caught by cameras giving heckling fans the finger. Yet another incident for a player with a long history of them, Puig needs to be suspended, not fined.
In the top of the second inning in a game against the Cleveland Indians last night, Los Angeles Dodgers outfielder Yasiel Puig belted his 10th home run of the season to give his team a 2-0 lead. During the resulting jog around the bases, Puig was captured by television cameras and press photographers giving Cleveland fans the finger as he neared second base. Here is ESPN Los Angeles with a quote from Puig:
“I reacted that way,” Puig said through an interpreter after the Dodgers posted a 7-5 win against the Indians. “I stooped to their level.”Asked if he regretted it, Puig said it happened suddenly. “It’s something that came out,” Puig said. “There’s really nothing I can do at this point.”Asked if he expected to be fined, Puig indicated there’s also not much he can do if that happens. “I can’t not pay it,” he said. “[The video is] everywhere. I know I did it. What can we do about it now?”
For his double-barreled salute to Cleveland, although Joakim Noah may have enjoyed it, Puig should be suspended, by either the league or his employing team.
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The parallels to the finger fiasco resulting in the termination of a team employee portraying Mr. Met are obvious. In one situation, a team employee was caught on a cell phone camera making an obscene gesture to fans while exiting the field, and was fired. In this situation, a team employee was caught by the telephoto lenses of photographers and broadcast television cameras making the same obscene gesture—two of them, to get technical about it—while rounding the bases on the field of play.
What’s more, the Mr. Met saga played out only after the incident, when the images of the character’s gesture went viral on social media. Puig’s doubling-up on the same exact gesture was caught and broadcast on live TV, and serves as the header image for nearly every story on the subject.
Furthermore, Puig’s tenure in Los Angeles has been from time to time rife with drama, resulting in various fines, benchings, further fines and demotion. Fining Yasiel Puig, or threatening him with benching or demotion, seems ineffective, because these kinds of things keep happening.
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It seems time the Dodgers or MLB step in and suspend Puig, because in a world where players are the subject of de facto suspensions based purely on Instagram comments, surely a televised bird-flipping of paying fans warrants a few surrendered game checks.