Things can get messy when professional athletes go on the road. The fans usually give them grief. Some more so than others.
Thankfully the days of Philadelphia fans throwing D-cell batteries at opposing players seems to be over. The verbal abuse is much more common these days.
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Part of being a professional is tuning it out, but sometimes the players have enough. They are human, after all.
This season, it seems that baseball players have found a way to respond to the hecklers without going all Ty Cobb on them.
They write a message on a baseball, and toss it to the heckler.
Brandon Phillips was the first to do so this season. After a rain delay in Pittsburgh, the crowd had thinned out, so the heckler could be heard loud and clear. So Phillips wrote him a message on the ball that said “Dear Drunk Guy, thank you 4 all the love and support. Now take this ball and shut the phuck up!” Phillips signed it with a smiley, and even posed for a selfie with the heckler.
Dallas Keuchel was the most recent player to respond to such a heckler.
He didn’t do as much with the interaction as Phillips did, but he certainly got his point across! The heart and his number were a nice touch!