Aaron Boone disagrees with Myles Straw that Yankees have worst fan base
The Guardians' Myles Straw climbs the wall in leftfield during the ninth inning against the Yankees in an MLB game at Yankee Stadium on Saturday. Credit: Kathleen Malone-Van Dyke
No surprise, but Aaron Boone doesn’t agree with the assessment of Guardians outfielder Myles Straw that the Yankees have “the worst fan base on the planet.”
Straw made the statement after Saturday’s ugly goings-on in the ninth inning at Yankee Stadium. The centerfielder scaled the leftfield fence to confront a fan after leftfielder Steven Kwan was injured while running into the wall. Minutes later, after Gleyber Torres’ walk-off single, Yankees fans in rightfield threw objects at Straw and rightfielder Oscar Mercado.
“That’s an emotional reaction to the moment,” Boone said on Sunday. “Certainly understand that. But would disagree with that.”
The Yankees added extra security for Sunday, a team spokesman said. They deployed the personnel along the baselines in rightfield and leftfield and on the rightfield warning track between innings as the Guardians outfielders warmed up.
Straw was booed when his name was announced before the game and for his plate appearances. Fans in right briefly chanted what sounded like “crybaby” at Mercado in the bottom of the first.
Straw and Mercado went a combined 0-for-8 and each had a misplay in the outfield in Sunday’s 10-2 Yankees victory.
Peacock ruffles feathers?
Why was Sunday’s game scheduled for a 1:35 p.m. start instead of the usual 1:05? Blame it on the Peacock.
Not the colorful bird, but the NBC-owned streaming service, which reached a deal with MLB this season to exclusively stream one game a week for 18 Sundays from May 8-Sept. 4.
MLB sold Peacock an exclusive time window that begins at 11:30 a.m., meaning no other Sunday games can start before 1:30 Eastern time beginning on May 8.
Even though the Peacock games haven’t begun, the Yankees chose to align all their non-Peacock Sunday day games with the new schedule (as have the Mets, whose Sunday home day games are scheduled for 1:40 p.m.)
All Yankee Sunday afternoon home games are scheduled for 1:35 p.m. — except for the June 5 game vs. Detroit that Peacock will carry. That game is scheduled to begin at 11:30 a.m., as are all of the first six Peacock games. The next 12 — including the Mets at Miami on June 26 — will begin at noon.
The Yankees received numerous complaints from fans trying to find this past Friday’s game on TV. It was the first of 21 Yankees games that will be exclusively shown on the streaming service Amazon Prime Video in the New York area. Those games used to be on Ch. 11.
MLB also made a deal for streaming-only games with Apple TV+. The Yankees have one next Friday night at Kansas City.
Kiner-Falefa’s corner
Isiah Kiner-Falefa (1-for-3, walk, sacrifice fly) is batting .424 (14-for-33) since starting the season 1-for-17. He has four RBIs in his last three games and five in his last five (his entire season total)
Anthony Rieber covers baseball, as well as the NFL, NBA and NHL. He has worked at Newsday since Aug. 31, 1998, and has been in his current position since July 5, 2004.
