As Detroit Tigers shortstop Javier Baez readied himself in the on-deck circle prior to a third inning at-bat on Friday, a fan seated nearby began giving him the business.
“Nothing bad,” Baez told The Detroit News of what the fan was saying. “Just talking good trash.”
As good as the trash talk may have been, it wasn’t nearly as good as Baez’s response.
With the bases loaded and a 1-2 count, Baez connected on a hanging curveball and sent it 459 feet over the left-center wall. And the very moment the ball left his bat at 111 MPH, Baez made sure that trash-talking fan knew all about it.
https://twitter.com/gifs_baseball/status/1540536305070837762
“He was just talking good trash,” Baez said. “I turned back and they were just laughing. It was competition stuff. As soon as I hit that ball, the first thing that came to my mind was all this other stuff that he was saying. It was very fun.”
Given some of the negative interactions we’ve seen between sports fans and athletes in recent years, this is a breath of fresh air. Baez and the fans were just having a little bit of fun — Baez more so than the fans in the end.
