Anyone care for an oral history of Toronto Blue Jays manager John Schneider calling a New York Yankees coach "fat boy"? Well sit on down, sonny! We'll tell ya all about the night of May 16, 2023 when a fake cheating accusation ballooned into somebody hurling a third grade insult!
On Tuesday night, tensions nearly boiled over during the Yanks-Jays matchup. The evening prior, Aaron Judge was "caught" by television cameras peering into the Yankees dugout during his at-bat before homering to deep center field. The Blue Jays broadcast insinuated something suspicious was occurring.
Turns out, Blue Jays reliever Jay Jackson was tipping his pitches, MLB determined nothing fishy was going on, and Judge claimed he was trying to see which one of his teammates was continuously chirping at the home plate umpire following manager Aaron Boone's ejection so he could have a word with them when he got back to the dugout.
But that wasn't enough for Schneider, who then took exception to the Yankees base coaches being outside of the designated boxes on the field, which he vocalized on Tuesday night. Upon further review, the Yankees coaches were standing outside the boxes, but farther away from home plate, so we're not sure what the big stink was about. But he complained to the umps about third base coach Luis Rojas, and the dugouts began jawing back and forth.
When things really escalated, Schneider, looking directly at the Yankees dugout, clearly mouthed "shut up fat boy," but we didn't know who it was directed at. And now it's a whole thing.
The Yankees' "Fat Boy" has been identified — and he speaks to @kaitlyncmcgrath about John Schneider's diss: https://t.co/CfVWrIfDrX
— Brendan Kuty 🧟♂️ (@BrendanKutyNJ) May 17, 2023
Michael Kay takes shot at Blue Jays manager John Schneider for calling a Yankees coach 'fat boy'
Turns out, it was at Yankees assistant Brad Wilkerson, who ended up revealing that to the media on Wednesday.
Brad Wilkerson, the target of Blue Jays manager John Schneider's "shut up, fat boy" comment, heard good-natured ribbing pretty much all day from Yankees players & staff. But it did irk plenty. As one member of the traveling party said of Schneider: "he should look in the mirror."
— Erik Boland (@eboland11) May 17, 2023
But if you ask Schneider, he didn't remember who he directed the insult toward. Yup, same guy who said Judge's explanation for peering into the dugout was "funny," suggesting it wasn't authetnic or believable. Those classic heat of the moment situations where you yell "fat boy" and then black out, unable to re-tell the sequence of events!
Asked if he was yelling at anybody in particular in the Yankees’ dugout last night, Blue Jays manager John Schneider said, “No. Heat of the moment.”
— Greg Joyce (@GJoyce9) May 17, 2023
Some folks on Blue Jays Twitter tried to defend their manager and claim he was calling somebody "frat boy," which many believed to be Harrison Bader. And you know what? That's better than Schneider's response, honestly.
So Blue Jays manager John Schneider apparently called Harrison Bader "Frat Boy"
— 4 Train Savages (@FourSavages) May 17, 2023
Guess what John, that's OUR FRAT BOY and he's a FUCKING STUD 😤pic.twitter.com/LqRJk14Xd8
That frat boy made another diving catch to steal extra bases from the Jays on Wednesday, too. But the moment we were all waiting for occurred not too long after.
When the incident came up during the broadcast, live on Amazon Prime, Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay took a shot at Schneider for his insult because, well, Schneider is listed at 6-foot-3 and 250 pounds, which isn't exactly the spitting image of fitness.
“Schneider’s not exactly Kate Moss either,” says @RealMichaelKay.
— Marc Carig (@MarcCarig) May 18, 2023
Well said. Perhaps the Blue Jays booth and pregame show can take a page out of Kay's book since he was able to nicely work around a sticky situation without painting too harsh of a picture. Schneider is indeed not Kate Moss, which doesn't at all insinuate that he's overweight.
See, it's not that hard to say something without saying it.