An altercation prior to Friday night’s game between the Cincinnati Reds and the San Francisco Giants saw a player for each team get separated while the Reds were going through batting practice. Video of the incident showed that players from both teams were scattered around left field, and while details were scarce, it eventually came out that Tommy Pham and Joc Pederson got into it with one another.
This is all I could see. pic.twitter.com/wUPN4VSvjt
— Mark Sheldon (@m_sheldon) May 27, 2022
According to C. Trent Rosecrans and Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic, Pham slapped Pederson. While he was originally in the team’s starting lineup for the game, he was scratched prior to it beginning and was not with them in the dugout at Great American Ball Park in Cincinnati. ESPN reported that the pair were “quickly separated.”
The reason for the kerfuffle, per The Athletic, was something related to a fantasy football league involving both players.
“According to multiple sources, the beef stems from a disagreement the two had in a fantasy football league including players from several teams,” The Athletic reported.
“We’re investigating and learning as much as we can about the incident,” Giants manager Gabe Kapler said prior to the game. “I don’t have much more for you than that right now. I sense that we’ll have a clearer understanding after the game.”
Pham and Pederson have never been teammates in the majors with one another.