Pham suspended after slapping Giants’ Pederson
CINCINNATI » The story of the night in the baseball world continued Saturday, when Tommy Pham addressed why he slapped Joc Pederson over a fantasy football dispute.
Pham confronted Pederson during batting practice on Friday and slapped him across the face with his hand open, an action Pederson did not respond to.
After an investigation, MLB suspended Pham for three games for his “inappropriate conduct” prior to Friday’s game, which Pham said MLB “pressured” him to sit out.
After Pederson gave his side of the events that caused the fracas Friday night, Pham told media in Cincinnati before Saturday’s game that Pederson had made “disrespectful” comments towards Pham’s old team, the San Diego Padres, in a group text message.
“I slapped Joc. He said some (stuff) I don’t condone. I had to address it,” Pham said, adding that Pederson’s “disrespectful” comments had do to with his former team, the San Diego Padres, whose current and former players make up most of the league. “I told him I didn’t forget about that (stuff) and walked right up and slapped him.”
While Pederson was walking barefoot in the outfield grass with mental health coach Harvey Martin — a pregame ritual called “grounding” that Pederson participates in — Pham approached him and delivered a hard, openhanded
slap across his left cheek.
Giants manager Gabe Kapler commended Pederson’s response by not retaliating.
“Yesterday we were mostly concerned about Joc and making sure he was all right mentally through all this,” Kapler said. “We always talk about being even and non-reactionary. I don’t think anybody exemplified that better than Joc did yesterday.”
Pederson addressed the incident after the game Friday night, explaining that Pham accused him of cheating in the fantasy football league by stashing players on the injured reserve and that “there’s not much more to it.”
“There was some (expletive) that went on in fantasy, but what he forgot to tell you guys, too, is he said some disrespectful (expletive) in a text message,” Pham said. “I called him out on it.”
Approached by reporters with Pham’s comments Saturday, Pederson declined an interview request.
What was clear after speaking with both players was that a high-stakes fantasy football league was at the center of the disagreement. The league involved many current and former
San Diego Padres, the team about which Pham said Pederson made comments in the group chat that were out of line.
While Pederson limited his explanation to the dispute over how he used the injured reserve, pointing to Pham’s ownership of 49ers oft-injured running back Jeff Wilson as an example, Pham indicated he resorted to physical violence because of the amount of money involved.
“We’ve got too much money on the line,” Pham said. “I look at it like, there’s a code. If you’re (messing) with my money, you’re going to say some disrespectful (stuff), there’s a code to this. … This was strictly about winning some money, gambling. … There’s a lot of money on the line. I’m a big dog in Vegas. I’m a high roller at many casinos. … If you lost, you had to pay double, so I looked at it like he was (messing) with my money, along with the disrespect.”
Pham declined to expand on the comments Pederson made in the text chain, saying, “It wasn’t racist. It was some (stuff) that you just don’t say. … I told him in the text thread right away, ‘I’m not cool enough with you to be talking like this.’”