USA Today
Fantasy football is a popular pastime in Major League Baseball clubs, but a dispute in a fantastic baseball football league sparked a field fight between Tommy Pham of the Cincinnati Reds and Joc Pederson of the San Francisco Giants.
According to Pederson, Pham hit him in the face during pre-match batting practice, all because they had had words about Pham’s accusation that Pederson broke the rules of his fantasy football league.
“We were together in a fantasy league,” Pederson said. “I put a player on the injured reserve when he was ruled out and then added another player. And then there was a text message in the group saying he was cheating because he was hiding players on my bench. Then I searched for the rules and sent a screenshot of the rules, as it says that when a player is ruled out, you can put it in the IR.That’s all he was doing.It happened that he had a player, [49ers running back] Jeff Wilson, who was out. I had it in the IR. I said, “You literally have the same thing on your computer, on your bank.” So I guess I was in two leagues and one of them was in the IR and one of them wasn’t, so maybe that was the confusion, but the ESPN league we were in was on the roster, so it looks very similar to what I did. And that was basically it. There is not much else. “
Pham was removed from the lineup just before the match. Pederson played as usual. Several players from both teams became involved in the fight between Pham and Pederson, but Pham’s slap seemed to be the only case of physical contact. Major League Baseball announced an investigation.
“MLB is investigating the incident that took place before the match involving Mr Pham,” an MLB statement said. “Mr. Pham agreed not to play tonight, pending the results of the MLB investigation. “