It’s an even lower blow than when A-Rod swatted the ball out of Bronson Arroyo’s glove. In a new bid to see just how low the Evil Empire can go, a Yankees fan sued a member of Red Sox [team stats] Nation for injuries sustained to his hand while he was punching said Sox fan in a bar fight.
Are you sitting down? A California jury last week ordered Bay State native David Sanborn to pay $25,297 for his role in the West Coast Red Sox-Yankees brawl.
“Typical Yankees fan. You sucker punch me, and then because my tooth goes into your hand, you sue me?” Sanborn, 40, fumed in an interview with the Herald. “It just goes to show what a Yankees fan is like. They’re greedy.”
That’s not quite how Yankees backer Mario Melendez tells it.
The Golden State dust-up took place at the Grand Avenue Bar & Grill in Carlsbad, Calif., one afternoon back in 2006, when Sanborn was cheering on the Sox vs. Tampa Bay, and Melendez was rooting for the Yanks over the Cleveland Indians. Yankees slugger Jason Giambi hit a home run, and when Melendez cheered, he says, Sanborn told him to “Sit your fat ass down, Jeter.”
The confrontation escalated, and Melendez claimed he punched Sanborn in self-defense after the 6-foot-1-inch man lifted him in the air. “I thought he was going to bodyslam me, so I hit him in the mouth and I broke his teeth,” Melendez said. The New York native didn’t realize how badly his hand was hurt until he went to the doctor.
“I’m a musician and I depend on my hands to make a living,” said Melendez, a professional bongo player whose phone message identifies him as “The No. 1 Yankee Fan in the World.” He sued, and the jury awarded him $15,297 for medical costs and $10,000 in punitive damages last week.
Now Sanborn is outraged he’s going to have to pay No. 1 off.
“As a guy from Boston, if you get in a fight, you move on. You don’t go suing someone. It’s ridiculous,” said Sanborn, a Gloucester native, said he grew up hating the Yankees.
“I’ll always hate them. I hate them to this day and I’ll probably hate them when I’m 6 feet under,” Sanborn said. He admits the fight was stupid, but suggests there were extenuating circumstances.
“No one wants to hear a Yankees fan cheering,” Sanborn said.
The brawl is yet another violent episode in the long-standing Red Sox-Yankees rivalry. A Yankees fan was charged with running down and killing a Red Sox fan with a car outside a New Hampshire bar last week.
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