Bob Collins
It was a shocking moment the other night when someone threw a can of beer at an outfielder for the Baltimore Orioles, just as he was about to make a catch on a deep fly in the wild card play-in game.
It was sadly typical of the fans of the Toronto Blue Jays, who have a history of throwing cans of beer on the field and each other, particularly in the postseason.
Who did it? Deadspin pulled out all the stops in its search — because none of the fans surrounding the ne’er-do-well would point him out (you knew it had to be a guy). It came up empty.
But Toronto police, having also scoured all the videos, say they’ve got their man.
This guy.
The police asked the public to help ID him and The Canadian Press says Ken Pagan e-mailed the news service and said it’s him.
Pagan is a sports journalist for the Toronto Sun, which had offered $1,000 for the beer-thrower’s capture. Embarrassing.
But Pagan, who is to turn himself in today, says he didn’t do it. He’s got some evidence, Huffington Post Canada says. He was shown earlier drinking beer out of a cup, not a can.
Others suggest it was a woman.
You can see Pagan in this tweet from photographer Frank Gunn. He was discounted from suspicion in the Deadspin Zapruder-like analysis of the evidence.
.@BlueJays Here is the zone from which the beer can was thrown 4 seconds afterwards. pic.twitter.com/eBb2B0SXd4
— Frank Gunn (@frankgunnphoto) October 5, 2016
It seems clear the person who threw it, is ducking down.
It also seems clear that if Pagan didn’t throw the can of beer, he — like the rest of the people in the photo above — could’ve pointed out who did.
Meanwhile, a group of Toronto fans — we’ll just refer to them as “real baseball fans”, thank you very much — bought an ad on Facebook to apologize to their counterparts in Baltimore.
