The Bronx Bomber
Tim Anderson telling an already silent Yankee Stadium to “f—king shut the f—k up” is the kind of unifying moment that could heal the nation
As it turns out, the New York Yankees and Chicago White Sox don’t like each other. They’re not in the same division. There’s no historic rivalry. The biggest game they’ve ever played was a glorified exhibition context in a corn field. But when the other Sox arrived in the Bronx this weekend for a three-game series with the Yankees, the bad blood flowed like wine.
It all began on Saturday, when the Yankees' Josh Donaldson called White Sox shortstop “Jackie” in a reference to a 2019 Sports Illustrated interview in which Anderson referred to himself as such. Anderson deemed the comment, coming from an opposing white player, racist, and had to be restrained as the benches cleared.
After the game, Donaldson claimed that he had called Anderson ”Jackie” before (not exactly a great start to your defense, pal) and believed it to be an inside joke between the two. Then he hit Anderson with the classic “I’m sorry if you were offended” non-apology apology.
If the comment were truly a joke, as Donaldson alleged, however, Anderson got the last laugh in the second game of Sunday’s doubleheader, when he launched a three-run opposite-field home run in the eighth inning to break the game open and plunge Yankee Stadium into silence. Rounding the bases, Anderson put his finger to his lips in the international symbol for “shut the f—k up”—which Yankees fans had already done under their volition—and then made the implicit explicit, arriving at the White Sox dugout and bellow “Everyone f—king shut the f—k up!” well within earshot of the Sunday Night Baseball cameras.
Hoo boy, that’s some grade-A angus beef right there. Whether your jersey has pinstripes on it or not, there’s no denying Anderson got the best of this encounter. In fact, after Donaldson’s racially charged “joke” on Saturday, the White Sox held the Yankees to just one run in 18 innings of baseball, the fewest by a Yankees team in a doubleheader since 1991. The Yankees should be just fine in the long run, but that's what one epic backfire, folks.