Pitcher McDowell asked some male fans, "Are you guys a homo couple or a threesome?
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Justin Quinn (below), with wife and daughters Kylynn and Taylor, says of alleged encounter with Roger McDowell: "He picked up a bat, asked me how much my teeth were worth to me."
Damian Dovarganes/AP
The relationship between major league players and their paying fans long ago became something very different than Babe Ruth joshing with kids along the front of the stands. This is now a marriage of convenience, with a prenup written in stone.
Up-close interactions are generally limited to team functions between athlete and fan, little more than camera-ops before or after games. More often, we see the practiced stares of cold, focused professionals who have seen it all and had enough of it. Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez run in and out of the dugout during batting practice at Yankee games with looks that say, "Can't hear you," even as children and autograph hounds alike scream at the top of their lungs for a signed baseball.
So this is no longer 1930. All but the most self-absorbed fan can understand the new boundaries, the code of silence from ballplayers that meets the plaintive cries from supporters. The fans get to say things, ask for things, even heckle reasonably. The players get to ignore them.
But then pitching coach Roger McDowell comes along Saturday at AT&T Park and apparently breaks through that wall with the worst sort of behavior imaginable - even for McDowell.
According to Justin Quinn, McDowell took it upon himself to confront San Francisco fans in the left-field bleachers during batting practice who were calling for Braves pitchers or catchers in the bullpen to toss them a ball.
McDowell asked some male fans, "Are you guys a homo couple or a threesome?" When Quinn told him there were children around and he shouldn't say such things, McDowell responded by telling him, in a profane manner, that kids don't belong at the ballpark.
Then he reportedly did something even worse, if that's possible. He threatened Quinn with a baseball bat. He also used the bat and his hand to simulate sex.
"He picked up a bat, asked me how much my teeth were worth to me," Quinn said Wednesday at a press conference alongside his wife, his twin daughters and celebrity attorney Gloria Allred. "I know in my profession there's certain things you can't do."
Quinn is a student from Fresno, he said, performing environmental research on tsunamis. He didn't seem to be asking for money, just an apology from McDowell and the Braves, which lent Quinn even greater credibility. He also had his two daughters dressed in pink, flanking him and backing up his account.
For reporters who covered the effective reliever during the Mets' golden years in the late '80s, this incident is horrifying, yet not far removed from the realm of believability. McDowell was known to the public as a merry prankster, a guy who would give a "hot foot" to teammates at the drop of a cap. But he also could get surly with reporters who were critical of his pitching.
"He definitely had a dark, nasty side," said one beat writer. "He was pretty thin-skinned. He could turn on you."
McDowell also appeared, ironically enough, in a "Seinfeld" episode as a player who spit on Kramer and Newman. That was fiction, while the story Wednesday unfortunately sounded more like fact.
McDowell eventually apologized for the actions in a statement, though he made a point of insisting that the fans had been abusive. That made his act of contrition sound more like yet another attack.
"I am deeply sorry that I responded to the heckling fans in San Francisco on Saturday," he said. "I apologize to everyone for my actions."
Thus far, the Braves have only released a statement indicating they're "concerned by these allegations" which "in no way represent the Braves organization and the conduct we expect of our employees."
Players and coaches alike have conduct clauses in their contracts. The Braves certainly have reasonable cause to dismiss McDowell, 50, for something as egregious and mean-spirited as this, if details are correct. McDowell somehow managed to combine homophobia, vulgarity and the threat of violence. The triple crown.
"Considering what happened to a father not long ago," said Quinn, referring to the Giant fan, Bryan Stow, who was beaten into a coma outside Dodger Stadium, "seeing a coach come at me with a bat, asking how much my teeth are worth, I can't assume he won't do anything."
We know pro sports have become something mercenary and impersonal. There are still rules of civility, however. The Braves and MLB need to do something about a line that was crossed into foulest territory.
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