During last year’s MLB playoffs, on October 4, 2016, Blue Jays fan Ken Pagan did what most of us have done in the drunken heat of the moment: something stupid.
Pagan, just a regular 42-year-old journalist, threw a can of beer at Baltimore Orioles outfielder Hyun Soo Kim during the seventh inning of the 2016 AL wild-card game, and his life would never be the same.
Shortly after the incident, he went viral on social media. The Toronto Sun even offered a $1,000 reward to anyone who helped identify Pagan, who was swiftly banned from every MLB stadium.
Now, about 9 months after the incident, Pagan is opening up about just how drastically the decision impacted his life.
Since that fateful October night, Pagan has endured public humiliation, loss of employment, a nine-month court case and a temporary ban from every stadium in Major League Baseball. Pagan admitted thast he can’t watch Blue Jays games anymore without feeling a certain level of guilt, claiming he even experiences PTSD-like symptoms when listening to Blue Jays game broadcasts.
via New York Post:
“When I hear that voice, I think of the disappointment I’ve brought to the organization,” Pagan said, about the moments he tries to listen to Jerry Howarth, the Blue Jays play-by-play man since 1981. “I was an idiot. I let a lot of people down. I’d rather not sit through nine innings of feeling like that.”
In Pagan’s words, the decision to go to the wild-card game was a late one. His brother and a few friends had tickets to the game and Pagan was able to switch shifts with an employee at Postmedia that allowed him to purchase his own ticket late the night before.
Before the game, he and his friends had “a few beers,” and he admitted he kept drinking throughout the evening. Pagan couldn’t really describe what caused him to throw the beer can during that fateful seventh inning besides his mind — and arm — copping to the excitement of the game and his intoxication.
“There’s no thought — you’re in the outfield, there’s a ball hit in your direction … excitement,” Pagan recalled. “Honestly, if I was to break down the blow-by-blow, I’d be speculating myself. There’s no thought process. It was an impulse.
This is a perfect summation of why 2017 sucks. Sure, it was a boneheaded decision on Pagan’s part, but is it really worth ruining his life over? If this were 20, hell, even 10 years ago, he’d pay a fine and move on with his life. But now, in the PC culture of 2017, the social justice warriors came out in droves to make such Pagan’s life was flipped upside down for a lone moment of stupidity.
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