NEWLY RELEASED VIDEO SHOWS REDS’ TOMMY PHAM SLAPPING JOC PEDERSON OVER FANTASY FOOTBALL DISPUTE.
Cincinnati outfielder Pham was suspended three games for the slap incident.
The slap heard around the MLB world, can now be seen around the world.
San Francisco Giants outfielder Joc Pederson was allegedly slapped by Cincinnati Reds outfielder Tommy Pham on Friday evening over a fantasy football league disagreement.
Now, a video has been released on social media, showing Pham allegedly approaching Pederson in the outfield before the Giants-Reds game and slapping him hard across the face.
“He kinda came up and said, ‘You remember from last year?’ And I was like, ‘fantasy football?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah,’” Pederson told reporters in the locker room after the Reds’ 5-1 victory.
Pham was suspended three games for the incident. Pederson explained the disagreement happened well over a year ago over the fantasy league the two were in.
“We were in a fantasy league together. I put somebody — a player — on the injured reserve when they were listed as out and added another player. And then there was a text message in the group saying that I was cheating because I was stashing players on the bench,” Pederson said.
Pederson explained that he felt he was within his right in setting up his team for that week and sent a screenshot of the rules to his group chat. He also pointed out that Pham had a similar situation on his team.
Pederson also showed reporters screenshots of text messages he sent in the group chat that apparently ignited the strange saga.
Pederson was also seen holding his phone to show a GIF that he made of three weightlifters in the group chat that included the superimposed logos of the Giants, Los Angeles Dodgers, and San Diego Padres.
Pham was with San Diego at the time and the Padres’ weightlifter was seen collapsing in the video. Pederson said he was making fun of the team because they weren’t playing well.
“Joc I don’t know you well enough to make any jokes like this,” Pham allegedly wrote in the group chat.
“It was meant to be all fun and games. No hard feelings,” Pederson responded. “Sorry if you took it that way.”
Pham apparently did take it the wrong way, leading to Friday’s slap. Pederson said he didn’t react after the slap hit his left cheek.
“There was a decent amount of people around,” he added. “I didn’t get emotional. I don’t think violence is the answer, I guess you could say … It was an unfortunate situation over a fantasy football rule. It wasn’t a rule.”
