Rangers Manager Clowns Yankee Stadium Dimensions: "Little League Ballpark"
As any New York Yankees fan will tell you, Yankee Stadium is the most hallowed ballpark in baseball history. If you're gonna talk smack about it, you best tread lightly. Apparently, Texas Rangers manager Chris Woodward didn't get the memo.
After Gleyber Torres hit a walk-off HR to right-field in the first game of a doubleheader at Yankee Stadium, Woodward whined about the short dimensions in right.
"That's an easy out in 99% of ballparks... He just happened to hit it in a Little League ballpark." -Rangers manager Chris Woodward on Gleyber Torres' walk-off home run
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) May 8, 2022
Gleyber's 369-foot shot that traveled at 106.5 MPH would have been a home run at 26 of 30 MLB parks pic.twitter.com/obrxaZ2Vgj
"That's an easy out in 99% of ballparks... He just happened to hit it in a Little League ballpark," said Woodward. Of course, in the Bronx, them's fighting words.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone, though, corrected Woodward, noting "his math is wrong." And indeed it is, as Statcast measured Torres' blast at 369 feet, which would have cleared the fences in 26 of the majors' 30 parks.
Here's the home run in question:
GLEYBER TORRES WALKOFF HOME RUN! YANKEES WIN! pic.twitter.com/sDaYQVz9Qi
— Talkin' Yanks (@TalkinYanks) May 8, 2022
Woodward walked his comments back after Game 2 of the doubleheader, according to the New York Post, claiming that his comments were a “joke”, while calling Yankee Stadium a “cathedral.”