Toronto police urge beer-throwing fan to turn self in
Toronto police have launched an investigation into the ugly beer-tossing incident from Tuesday's wild-card showdown at Rogers Centre, and asked the fan who hurled the beverage can at Baltimore Orioles left fielder Hyun Soo Kim to "turn yourself in."
Toronto Police & @RogersCentre investigating beer-toss @BlueJays/@Orioles game. #Unsportsmanlike fan: turn yourself in. We have photos. ^vk
— Toronto Police (@TorontoPolice) October 5, 2016
In the bottom of the seventh inning of the Blue Jays' eventual 5-2 victory, a fan tossed what appeared to be a full can of beer at Kim as he settled under Melvin Upton Jr.'s drive to deep left field, narrowly missing the 28-year-old. After hauling in Upton's fly ball, a stunned Kim looked up into the seats. As the rest of the Orioles made their way off the field, center fielder Adam Jones rushed over to his teammate and shouted into the left-field bleachers while manager Buck Showalter stormed out of the dugout to talk to the umpires.
"Something like that should never happen. It's the first time for me and hopefully the last," Kim said after the game through an interpreter.
.@BlueJays Here is the zone from which the beer can was thrown 4 seconds afterwards. pic.twitter.com/eBb2B0SXd4
— Frank Gunn (@frankgunnphoto) October 5, 2016
Jones, who called the gesture "as pathetic as it gets," was hoping the fan would be prosecuted.
"I hope they find the guy and press charges," he told ESPN's Jerry Crasnick. "(Kim) wasn't looking, and you can hit him in the back of the head and you never know what could happen. That's a full beer being thrown. That's not part of the sport. To put us in harm's way when all we're doing is focusing on the game, that's not part of baseball. Throw an octopus. Throw hats. Do something like that."
Matt Wieters, the Orioles' veteran catcher, felt the same way.
"It's a shame some idiot would decide to do that," Wieters said. "There's no point in having a guy like that in the stands. I hope some sort of charges are pressed against the guy, because that was close to doing some damage."
In conjunction with the police investigation, the Toronto Sun, the city's fourth-largest newspaper, is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest of the "loon-ball" who threw the can, as mayor John Tory put it.
"Some loon-balls have to ruin it and same with the loon-ball that would throw a can of beer out of the stands," Tory told Newstalk 1010. "But look, it is one in 50,000 and everybody else had a good time and hopefully people know who that was and have singled them out for special attention."