Hoskins slide adds early spice to Brewers-Mets
NEW YORK — Even on a new team in a different division, it took all of one game for Rhys Hoskins to rile up the New York Mets.
Tempers flared Friday during the season opener at Citi Field when the Milwaukee Brewers‘ newcomer — who agitated the Mets during his days with the NL East rival Phillies — slid hard into second baseman Jeff McNeil on a potential double-play ball in the eighth inning.
“Just a late slide. We’ve had a little bit of a past, so I knew there was a chance that he’d be coming in like that,” McNeil said after Milwaukee’s 3-1 victory. “Didn’t like his slide. I wasn’t trying to turn a double play at all. Just trying to catch the ball. There was no need to break it up.”
McNeil was visibly angry after the play, gesturing and yelling down at Hoskins as the Milwaukee slugger was on the ground. Hoskins got up and headed for the Brewers’ dugout, but both benches and bullpens spilled onto the field.
Hoskins said he kept his cleats down on the slide, and he thought McNeil overreacted.
“I’m just trying to play baseball, right?” Hoskins said. “The last thing I want to do is give them a clear lane to make a double play. So, a certain someone took — McNeil took (exception) to my slide, but I didn’t really think much of it, to be honest. I ended up hitting him, but that’s what happens with a slow-developing play.”
The teams stayed separated and there was no pushing and shoving, though Hoskins rubbed his eyes as if to call McNeil a crybaby, and McNeil cursed at Hoskins from across the diamond.
“A few choice words. But, you know, I’ve played in this ballpark a bunch, and he just seems to be complaining when things aren’t going well and I think that’s kind of one of those moments,” Hoskins said. “Maybe lost in the heat of the game a little bit. But again, I think it was just playing the game hard and playing the game the right way.”
Even before Hoskins hit McNeil’s leg, McNeil bobbled the ball as he attempted to transfer it to his throwing hand following third baseman Brett Baty‘s low throw. So there was no relay to first.
“He’s had some pretty questionable slides at second base, for sure,” McNeil said. “Definitely remember looking at some in the past that were definitely not OK. So I knew there was a possibility that might happen. And it did.”
Hoskins said after the play, he initially stayed down in the dirt to let McNeil vent.
“I kind of like laid there afterward. A couple of guys said, I thought maybe you hurt yourself. But I was just kind of letting whatever McNeil needed to get out, let him get it out,” Hoskins said. “And I just kind of ran off the field after that, and got to see everybody on the team out there.”
Hoskins and the Mets have had issues before. New York reliever Jacob Rhame threw up and in on Hoskins a couple of times in 2019, and the slugger took 34 seconds to trot around the bases on a home run against the Mets.
Hoskins missed last season with Philadelphia because of a knee injury, then signed a $34 million, two-year contract with Milwaukee in January to become the team’s new first baseman.
“You get a guy who misses a year and that’s horrible to see. And then you go right back and try to put a spike into someone’s leg. It’s tough,” McNeil said. “Don’t want to wish injury on anyone. It’s tough seeing him miss a year. Felt extremely bad when I saw him go down. Just a tough circumstance there.”
The Mets challenged the play for a slide violation, but the call stood following a replay review.
“It’s a late slide. Obviously, we didn’t like it, Jeff didn’t like it, but it’s legal,” Mets manager Carlos Mendoza said. “He held onto the base and it’s considered legal. Apparently there’s some history there between them, too, and that’s what got Jeff heated there.”
Asked if he thought the slide was clean or dirty, McNeil said: “It was a legal slide, so I just want to leave it at that.”
McNeil also said he’s not looking for any retribution the rest of the weekend.
“I hope not. I don’t want this to be something,” he said. “I just want to go out and play good baseball and try to win the series.”
NASCAR driver Katherine Legge said she has been receiving “hate mail” and “death threats” from auto racing fans after she was involved in a crash that collected veteran driver Kasey Kahne during the Xfinity Series race last weekend at Rockingham.
Legge, who has started four Indy 500s but is a relative novice in stock cars, added during Tuesday’s episode of her “Throttle Therapy” podcast that “the inappropriate social media comments I’ve received aren’t just disturbing, they are unacceptable.”
“Let me be very clear,” the British driver said, “I’m here to race and I’m here to compete, and I won’t tolerate any of these threats to my safety or to my dignity, whether that’s on track or off of it.”
Legge became the first woman in seven years to start a Cup Series race earlier this year at Phoenix. But her debut in NASCAR’s top series ended when Legge, who had already spun once, was involved in another spin and collected Daniel Suarez.
Her next start was the lower-level Xfinity race in Rockingham, North Carolina, last Saturday. Legge was good enough to make the field on speed but was bumped off the starting grid because of ownership points. Ultimately, she was able to take J.J. Yeley’s seat in the No. 53 car for Joey Gase Motorsports, which had to scramble at the last minute to prepare the car for her.
Legge was well off the pace as the leaders were lapping her, and when she entered Turn 1, William Sawalich got into the back of her car. That sent Legge spinning, and Kahne had nowhere to go, running into her along the bottom of the track.
“I gave [Sawalich] a lane and the reason the closing pace looks so high isn’t because I braked midcorner. I didn’t. I stayed on my line, stayed doing my speed, which obviously isn’t the speed of the leaders because they’re passing me,” Legge said. “He charged in a bit too hard, which is the speed difference you see. He understeered up a lane and into me, which spun me around.”
The 44-year-old Legge has experience in a variety of cars across numerous series. She made seven IndyCar starts for Dale Coyne Racing last year, and she has raced for several teams over more than a decade in the IMSA SportsCar series.
She has dabbled in NASCAR in the past, too, starting four Xfinity races during the 2018 season and another two years ago.
“I have earned my seat on that race track,” Legge said. “I’ve worked just as hard as any of the other drivers out there, and I’ve been racing professionally for the last 20 years. I’m 100 percent sure that … the teams that employed me — without me bringing any sponsorship money for the majority of those 20 years — did not do so as a DEI hire, or a gimmick, or anything else. It’s because I can drive a race car.”
Legge believes the vitriol she has received on social media is indicative of a larger issue with women in motorsports.
“Luckily,” she said, “I have been in tougher battles than you guys in the comment sections.”
Legge has received plenty of support from those in the racing community. IndyCar driver Marco Andretti clapped back at one critic on social media who called Legge “unproven” in response to a post about her history at the Indy 500.
“It’s wild to me how many grown men talk badly about badass girls like this,” Andretti wrote on X. “Does it make them feel more manly from the couch or something?”
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