Sleeping Yankees Fan - H 2014
The New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox rivalry is one of the oldest and fiercest rivalries in sports, but that didn’t stop one fan from falling asleep during the action.
A disgruntled Yankees fan has filed a $10 million lawsuit against ESPN commentators Dan Shulman and John Kruk claiming they made fun of him when he nodded off during a game at Yankee Stadium.
Andrew Robert Rector had a rude awakening when he realized that his nap time during the fourth inning of the Yankees-Red Sox game April 13 had been caught on camera and sparked comments from Sunday Night Baseball‘s Shulman and Kruk.
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Rector, 26, filed a $10 million defamation lawsuit against ESPN, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Shulman and Kruk, claiming the analysts unleashed an “avalanche of disparaging words” against him that included “stupor, fatty, unintelligent, stupid.”
The pair, who often make fun of each other live on air especially when it comes to food, had made some lighthearted comments about Rector sleeping: “This is not the place you come to sleep. How comfortable is that? Probably won’t have any neck problems tomorrow,” joked Kruk.
Shulman went on to wonder if the man next to him was his friend, to which Kruk responded, “maybe that’s his buddy and he likes him a lot better when he’s asleep.”
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“I think the other guy is more concerned with his food,” added Shulman, in regard to the neighbor, who was digging into a plate of fried chicken.
“We’ll have to see how long this guy is out for. Did he sleep through the [Carlos] Beltran homer? I mean, 45,000 people stand up and cheer and he sleeps through it?” he asked.
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The typo-ridden lawsuit filed by Rector’s attorney at the Supreme Court of New York goes on to state that negative comments were made online about Rector by visitors to a YouTube video that was posted by the MLB, and he is blaming the league and the network for the Internet attacks. The complaint claims that these defamatory comments were sparked by Shulman and Kruk.
“The comments attributed to ESPN and our announcers were clearly not said in our telecast. The claims presented here are wholly without merit,” a spokesperson for ESPN said in an email statement to The Hollywood Reporter.
Watch video of Rector sleeping with Shulman’s and Kruk’s commentary below.
