Yankees’ Cole responds to claim he snubbed Red Sox’ All-Stars originally appeared on NBC Sports Boston
Gerrit Cole won’t face any dear friends in the Red Sox‘ lineup Tuesday night.
The New York Yankees ace, who’s set to oppose Boston’s Nathan Eovaldi in a winner-take-all American League Wild Card Game at Fenway Park, apparently gave the cold shoulder the Red Sox’ All-Star contingent during this year’s festivities in Denver.
In a mic’d up video from All-Star Weekend in July, Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez appeared to tell the Toronto Blue Jays‘ Teoscar Hernandez and Vladimir Guerrero Jr. that Cole blew off Xander Bogaerts and Rafael Devers on the team bus when the Sox All-Stars tried to say hi to him.
JD Martinez tells a group of fellow All Stars that Gerrit Cole ignored the Red Sox players who said hello to him on the bus pic.twitter.com/AB7JQVtWU0
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) July 17, 2021
Cole remembers that moment a bit differently, however.
“I don’t recall having tons of conversations with them,” Cole said Monday of the Red Sox’ All-Stars, via the New York Daily News. “They were kind of on other sides of the clubhouse. Certainly don’t remember some of the exchanges that have been reported.”
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Cole then tried to blame his apparent brusqueness on being under the weather that weekend.
“But I was still kind of not feeling too hot those couple days there coming out of Houston,” Cole said. “So I wasn’t maybe quite myself. But also, maybe it wasn’t quite what other people try to portray me like.”
We wouldn’t blame Cole for not hamming it up with members of New York’s nemesis, especially if he had a feeling he’d face the Red Sox in October. That turned out to be the case, as Cole will get the ball Tuesday in the Yankees’ first-ever postseason elimination game at Fenway Park.
Cole won’t face Martinez, who is sidelined with a sprained ankle. But Bogaerts and Devers will do everything in their power to give Cole his own rude welcome to Fenway Park.