San Diego Padres' Fernando Tatis Jr. Has Fun with Chicago Cubs Heckling Fans
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San Diego Padres right fielder Fernando Tatis Jr. had some fun with Cubs fans on Tuesday night at Wrigley Field.
The Cubs fans out in the bleachers chanted "he's on steroids" at Tatis Jr., who just came back from a PED suspension last week.
Instead of jawing with the fans -- or just ignoring it -- Tatis Jr. elected to lean into it and turned the chants into a beat to dance to. You can see the interaction below, which was posted on social media by Ben Verlander of Fox Sports.
Verlander said "Incredible. The outfield crowd has been heckling Tatis all game. They started chanting "he's on steroids." He turned it into a dance. The kid is back. Close your eyes if you hate fun."
I don't know, there's a few different things going on here.
1) Tatis Jr. should expect to get some ribbing from crowds all over baseball. You commit the penalty, that's going to happen.
2) It's certainly good that Tatis Jr. is able to have fun with the fans, rather than get into a confrontation with them.
3) I don't know if I consider it "fun" though, in general. Again, it's better than a confrontation, but at the podium and in the clubhouse, Tatis Jr. should be showing contrition, at least to me.
We've written about Tatis Jr. a lot lately at Fastball and FanNation. We recently wrote about a great play he made in right field in his first game back. We also spoke with Triple-A broadcaster Tim Hagerty, who called games for Tatis Jr. on the way back to the majors.
The 24-year-old Tatis was one of the brightest young stars in baseball just a few years ago. He made his debut at the age of 19 in 2019 and played 84 games for the Padres, hitting 22 home runs while stealing 16 bases. In the pandemic-shortened 2020 season, he hit 17 more homers and then in 2021, he hit 42 homers to lead baseball and added 25 steals.
To this point, he's hitting .182 through 22 at-bats since coming back. He does have one home run and one RBI.
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