As pitching coach of the Atlanta Braves, Roger McDowell is in charge of keeping an eye on all of the guys who are responsible for hurling the baseball. What he probably should not be hurling is homophobic slurs at the opposing team’s fans. It’s possible he missed the memo, but that type of thing will usually get you into trouble. Need a recent example? Just ask Kobe Bryant.
According to the LA Times, via The Big Lead, McDowell has been accused of directing homophobic slurs toward a group of Giants fans at AT&T Park on Saturday and threatening another with a baseball bat. More specfically, the fans say McDowell asked them if they were “a homo couple or a threesome?” and then used his two fingers and the small end of a bat to simulate a sexual act. If you can’t see how that would work, draw yourself a picture — you’ll get it.
It gets better. Through his attorney, Gloria Allred, Giants fan Justin Quinn told reporters he observed the above incident and told McDowell to knock it off because there were kids in the stands. McDowell allegedly responded by telling Quinn, “Kids don’t (expletive) belong at the ball park.” Quinn says he then walked toward him holding a bat and asked him, “How much are your teeth worth?”
For those of you skeptics out there, McDowell and the Braves have since apologized for the alleged incident and are looking into it further, so something definitely went down. If all this is true, McDowell was either having an extremely bad day or has some serious issues he needs to deal with. There’s no excuse for a coach or player to be acting like that toward fans whether they were heckling or not.
