San Diego Padres left fielder Justin Upton was not happy after getting caught stealing in the top of the eighth inning of Saturday night's game against the Colorado Rockies, and he inadvertently took out his frustrations on teammate Yonder Alonso.
Upton swung his helmet in disgust as he walked through the dugout toward the bat rack. While he was just trying to let off some steam, he ended up losing control of his helmet—which hit an unaware Alonso in the head.
Alonso immediately fell to the dugout floor. After he got up, he let out his own frustration by slamming around buckets of gum. Luckily, nobody was hurt by his venting.
The Padres first baseman left the game for precautionary reasons.
After the game, Upton explained, via Corey Brock of MLB.com, that he was upset at the time but vowed he would learn from his mistake:
We're out there competing and that's a big point in the game and I made a big mistake. I was pretty upset about it.
It's childish. I've got to do better than that and not make that mistake again.
As for Alonso, he understood emotions can get the best of players at times.
"I was just watching the game and felt something just hit me right across the head," Alonso said, per Brock. "But it's part of the game. Guys get upset. I'm fine. Luckily, everything checked out well. We're going to move on."
Alonso also said that he and Upton talked about the incident and have moved on.
Update from Sunday, Aug. 16
On Sunday, Alonso made sure that history would not repeat itself. He wore catcher's gear in the dugout:
It looks like Alonso has a good sense of humor about the situation.
[MLB]
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