Austin Capobianco has grown accustomed to the blowback. It’s been greater than three months because the 38-year-old Connecticut man grabbed and pried open the glove of Los Angeles Dodgers proper fielder Mookie Betts in Sport 4 of the World Sequence at Yankee Stadium. He’s acquired a whole bunch of texts and voicemails from strangers telling him to go to hell or worse.
He’s been excoriated on social media — only one penance for a sin witnessed dwell on tv by 16 million folks and replayed countlessly on-line since.
However this winter, not lengthy earlier than Capobianco would obtain a letter from Main League Baseball indefinitely banning him from all MLB stadiums, the arrival of a special type of supply left him surprised.
He answered a telephone name from his brother, who instructed him {that a} field had arrived on the doorstep of their mother and father’ home in a sleepy suburb on the shoreline of Connecticut.
There was no identify on it. It had some weight.
Cautious to open it, a Google search of the return deal with led them to an organization that makes a speciality of sending nameless packages full of a specific substance.
“It was poop,” Capobianco mentioned.
Somebody had paid an organization to anonymously ship feces to Capobianco. However since his identify was nonetheless related together with his mother and father’ deal with on-line, it wound up there as a substitute of at his residence.
Different nameless packages had been additionally despatched to his workplace, the place he and his 4 siblings work for his or her household’s meals service provide and industrial kitchen design enterprise. They went unopened.
“All of the stuff my household has needed to take care of due to me,” Capobianco mentioned. “The nonstop telephone calls. The folks sending me photos of their ugly wanting penises. The packages.”
Capobianco says he regrets interfering with Betts and that he needs the entire thing “by no means occurred.”
He’s upset that he’s been banned, however says that he understands the penalty. The diehard Yankees fan hopes he can get again in MLB’s good graces before later in order that he can return to Yankee Stadium.
However he additionally desires to provide his model of what occurred that night time. And he hopes that the fixed stream of largely nameless vitriol will lastly finish.
“Guys, you gained the World Sequence,” he mentioned. “Depart me alone.”
Seated at an Italian restaurant in mid-January, Capobianco doesn’t appear to be acknowledged by anybody. Wearing a blue Moncler crew neck and a black beanie, moderately than the all-black flat brim Yankees hat and outsized grey jersey he’ll ceaselessly be related to, he’s simply one other man out for dinner within the Westchester County suburbs.
On Oct. 29 of final yr, he was additionally simply one other man within the crowd, till he made a collection of selections that can possible comply with him for a very long time.
Capobianco arrived on the stadium for Sport 4 together with his youthful brother Darren, greatest buddy John Hansen and one other buddy. They discovered their 4 seats in part 109, up in opposition to the wall in the correct area nook — a ticket bundle Capobianco’s older brother has had the rights to for somewhat greater than a decade.
Virtually straight away, a darkish cloud appeared to hold over the Bronx. Within the first inning, Yankees beginning pitcher Luis Gil gave up a one-out double to Betts after which a house run to Freddie Freeman, who had sunk the Yankees with a Tenth-inning walk-off blast in Sport 1 and likewise homered in video games 2 and three. It felt just like the embarrassment of a sweep occurring on the Yankees’ personal turf could also be inevitable.
Reeling and livid, they determined to regroup. They shuffled their seats, hoping it might carry “good juju,” Capobianco mentioned. He slid from his customary spot on the far proper of the foursome and into the seat second from the left.
“I’ve by no means sat in that seat … in my life,” he mentioned.
Then, within the Yankees’ first at-bat of the sport, Gleyber Torres made contact with a excessive and inside fastball. It screamed towards Capobianco and his crew at 91.1 mph.
First the ball bought previous each of Hansen’s outstretched fingers. Then it landed within the glove of Betts, whose left wrist was between Capobianco’s fingers, which had been forming a cup however didn’t seem to go the wall and enter the sphere of play.
What occurred subsequent was one thing no person had ever seen earlier than.
Capobianco grabbed Betts’ glove with each fingers, gritted his enamel and pulled it open simply sufficient to suit his hand inside and knock the ball unfastened. As Betts tussled with Capobianco, Hansen gripped Betts’ proper wrist.
After the ball fell to the sphere, umpires dominated fan interference and referred to as Torres out. Betts and the group briefly exchanged phrases.
“Mookie was swearing at us,” Darren Capobianco mentioned on the time. “Not good.”
Austin Capobianco knew he was going to be ejected.
“I didn’t know the way unhealthy it was,” he mentioned, “however I knew it was unhealthy.”
Inside a minute, Yankee Stadium safety guards whisked away Capobianco and Hansen and instructed them they’d be ejected from the sport. On the time, Capobianco mentioned, stadium safety instructed them they’d be allowed again for Sport 5. The following afternoon, MLB introduced that they’d, in reality, be barred from the sport, and the Yankees donated their tickets to a household whose youngster had most cancers.
Capobianco and Hansen watched the remainder of Sport 4 and all of Sport 5 from Billy’s Bar throughout the road from the stadium.
“1,000,000 folks wished to take photos,” he mentioned.
Capobianco now says he has by no means watched clips of his interference with Betts and he by no means will. When it reveals on TV, he alters the channel.
“I need nothing to do with that reminiscence,” he mentioned not too long ago.
However within the hours after the sport, Capobianco appeared to embrace the notoriety. He did an interview with a reporter for ESPN. The following day, he appeared on a Barstool Sports activities podcast.
“We at all times joke concerning the ball in our space,” Capobianco mentioned on the time, in accordance with ESPN. “We’re not going to exit of our method to assault. If it’s in our space, we’re going to ‘D’ up. … Somebody defends, somebody knocks the ball. We speak about it. We’re prepared to do that.”
However chatting with The Athletic, Capobianco and Hansen every mentioned they’d by no means deliberate to the touch a participant. They mentioned the plan was to only knock down the ball to ensure it doesn’t turn into an out for the Yankees — and provided that the ball was heading towards their seats and never the sphere of play.
Hansen mentioned that he was improper for gripping Betts’ wrist and that he wasn’t making an attempt to harm him. He added that when he noticed Betts making a transfer towards Capobianco, he simply reacted, not realizing that Capobianco had management of his glove.
“I used to be simply making an attempt to forestall one thing from escalating in actually half a second,” Hansen, who lives in Nashville, mentioned.
The next day, many had been shocked when Capobianco had a well-known supporter: Gronk.
Capobianco attended the College of Arizona, the place he turned associates with a freshman tight finish named Rob Gronkowski. Gronkowski referred to as Capobianco a “enjoyable dude,” although he added that what he did was “actually unacceptable.”
“Him doing that represents him very properly,” Gronkowski mentioned on “Up & Adams” on Fanduel TV. “He’s all in for his groups, he’s all in for the Yankees. I bear in mind him speaking concerning the Yankees on a regular basis, how he loves them a lot. That describes him completely, doing no matter it takes to assist his group out. He’s a magnificence.”
Quickly after the incident, Capobianco’s cellphone was blowing up, many of the calls both displaying “No ID” or Southern California space codes.
Most of the voicemails, which Capobianco shared with The Athletic, had been vicious.
“Have enjoyable watching Sport 5 from residence, ass hat.”
“F— you, you piece of s—. You’ve bought karma coming to you. Watch your again, b—-.”
“You’re a f—— fool and a joke, fatass.”
Now, all Capobianco can do is wait.
MLB’s letter final month famous that his “conduct posed a severe threat to the well being and security of (Betts) and went far over the road of acceptable fan habits,” one thing that Capobianco says he understands.
He badly hopes to be allowed again to Yankee Stadium within the close to future, although he understands it would take some time. He grew up in Connecticut loving the Yankees and attending video games on the outdated stadium together with his dad.
Capobianco mentioned he tries to keep away from his telephone and doesn’t like social media. He spends most of his days working. He likes to journey. He’s grateful that what they did hasn’t harm the Capobianco household enterprise.
“I’m a superb dude who did a dumb factor on digital camera,” he mentioned.
Capobianco mentioned he hopes in some unspecified time in the future this yr to achieve out to MLB to ask what he may do to expedite the method of lifting his ban. He mentioned the one who owns their season ticket bundle could also be prepared to donate tickets to some video games to charity, like he mentioned they’ve completed at numerous occasions all through the years. He added that he can be comfortable to do some type of neighborhood service, too.
Nevertheless, the followers who ran onto the outfield and hugged Atlanta Braves outfielder Ronald Acuńa Jr. at Coors Subject in August 2023 are nonetheless serving indefinite bans handed down by MLB. An MLB spokesman added {that a} fan seated close to Capobianco and his group throughout Sport 4 reported to the league “damaging suggestions concerning their conduct” earlier than the Betts incident occurred.
Whereas Betts’ preliminary public response to the incident on the time was subdued and he hasn’t publicly commented on the indefinite ban because it was leveled, he did let unfastened on Peacock’s “Again That 12 months Up 2024.”
“I’d actually say ‘F— you guys,’” Betts mentioned in late December. “I get them making an attempt to get the ball. Cool. However you tried to seize my s—. I used to be within the second. So I considered throwing a ball at them. After which I spotted, ‘Mook, you ain’t gonna do s—. Return to proper area.”
Below the phrases of the ban, Capobianco and Hansen aren’t allowed at any MLB stadium, they usually can’t attend MLB-sponsored occasions. They’re allowed to attend minor-league video games, except the stadium is owned by a major-league group.
Greater than something, Capobianco hopes to easily fade from public consciousness.
No extra assumptions that this was premeditated. No extra harassing calls or nasty voicemails. No extra mysterious packages.
“I’m a hero in Yankees land. I’m a villain in America,” he mentioned. “I don’t actually care. I simply need to be forgotten about. That’s it. I need folks to neglect about me.”
(High photograph of Capobianco and Hansen at Sport 4: Al Bello / Getty Photographs)