Fisk’s Outburst at Sanders Was One for Yankee Pride
Deion Sanders still isn’t saying much about his verbal exchange with Carlton Fisk that led to a bench-clearing faceoff between the New York Yankees and the Chicago White Sox Tuesday night. But Fisk, who declining comment after the game, had plenty to say in Baltimore Wednesday night.
Remembering the third-inning infield pop-up that Sanders failed to run out, Chicago’s Fisk recalled yelling to the rookie, “Run the . . . ball out, you . . . ! He said, ‘What?’ and I said, ‘Run the ball out.’
“I made eye contact with him on purpose the next time he came up (in the fifth inning),” Fisk said. “He mumbled something and I said, ‘What?’ Then he said, ‘The days of slavery are over.’ I told him, ‘There’s a right way and a wrong way to play this game.’ ” Fisk also said he angrily told Sanders that his attitude would come back to haunt him.
Fisk said he was offended by Sanders’ reaction but ultimately thought some good might come of it. “It’s the Yankee pride and the Yankee pinstripes involved here,” he said. “Some of those guys got to be turning over in their graves. Watch. He’ll go out and play good now. And I hope he does. I play for the other team, but that even offends me.
“Now he comes up the second time and he wants to make it a racial issue. There’s no racial issue involved. It’s professional etiquette. There’s something special about Yankee Stadium, and that’s why I didn’t talk about it (Tuesday) night. I might have said something I’d be sorry for. I’m either old and cynical or old and sentimental. Either way, I know what’s right and what’s wrong.”
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