Major League Baseball avoided a potentially nightmare scenario on Monday night as two fans were allowed to rush onto Coors Field and make contact with Ronald Acuña Jr, knocking him off balance in the process.
My first Braves game in two years and I was not expecting to see Ronald Acuña get mobbed by two morons on the field. Glad you’re ok Ronnie! pic.twitter.com/jZVbBnSQpA
— Child of the Magenta Line ✈️ (@HelpHowDoILand) August 29, 2023
The 25-year-old Braves superstar was in the outfield at the time of the incident. A fan wrapped his arms around Acuña, seemingly with a cell phone in his hand. After a short time he was met by three security guards who struggled to pull the fan off Acuña, before another fan rushed in at full pace, knocking the player off balance and causing him to crash to the ground.
It became clear the enthusiastic fans were just trying to show their love of Acuña, but that didn’t change just how scary the moment could have been. In 1993 world No. 1 tennis player Monica Seles was competing in Germany when a fan jumped from the stands and stabbed her between the shoulder blades with a boning knife, with the aim of taking her out of competitive tennis so rival Steffi Graff could regain the No. 1 ranking. Trauma from the attack caused Seles to miss two years of competitive tennis, and when she returned she struggled to regain the dominance she had prior to the attack.
While the Acuña incident didn’t result in any injury, it didn’t change the serious security concerns that allowed two fans to rush a player on the field and make contact with him, with security guards so out of position that they were unable to stop the fans before making contact.
Acuña’s teammate Austin Riley spoke after the game and was simply thankful something horrible didn’t happen.
Braves manager Brian Snitker noted in his post-game interview that nobody from the Rockies’ security team spoke to his dugout about the incident or any measures they were taking place to ensure it didn’t happen again.
“You don’t want to see that happen, I know that. You don’t know what they will do when they get out there. It’s a scary situation.”
Brian Snitker on tonight’s incident with Ronald Acuña Jr. pic.twitter.com/4j6tBjS420
— Bally Sports South (@BallySportsSO) August 29, 2023
At this time neither the Rockies, nor MLB have made a statement about the incident or outlined any potential changes to security to ensure this doesn’t happen again.
