A fan has been banned from all MLB stadiums over something he said to Ketel Marte during a recent game between the Arizona Diamondbacks and Chicago White Sox, and some new information about the heckling has surfaced.
A fan was ejected late in the Diamondbacks’ 4-1 win over the White Sox at Rate Field in Chicago, Ill., on Tuesday night. Marte was in tears after the fan allegedly said something to the second baseman during a pitching change. Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo later revealed that the fan yelled something about Marte’s mother, who died in a car crash in 2017.
Marte spoke about the incident during an interview with “Danny Beisbol” on Thursday. The conversation took place in Spanish but was translated via subtitles. Marte said the comment the fan made was, “I sent your mom a text last night.”
“What happened was in the seventh inning, I came to bat. I’m ready at the plate and I hear this fan shouting. He was on top of the dugout,” Marte said. “He yelled at me, saying stuff about my mom. He was like, ‘I sent your mom a text last night.’ When everything happened with my mom, I was here in Chicago. I was in this city.”
Marte added that he thinks fan behavior is “getting out of hand” and that something needs to be done. He said he has dealt with hecklers but has never heard a fan make a remark about his mother.
Now that we know what the fan said, the big question is whether he knew that Marte’s mother had died in a tragic accident. It is entirely possible that the fan was just trying to get under Marte’s skin and had no knowledge of the fatal crash.
Either way, MLB says the fan has been banned from ballparks indefinitely. Lovullo also had a very vulgar message for the fan before the ejection.
