BOSTON (AP) — Washington Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli stepped forward Wednesday to apologize after he shouted “sit down, boy” at Boston Red Sox first baseman Willson Contreras following a strikeout the night before, setting off a bench-clearing confrontation.
“I’m extremely torn up about the way that things were perceived,” Cavalli said. “Obviously, there was no ill intention behind that.”
The incident unfolded in the fourth inning of Washington’s 8-1 win over Boston, when Cavalli struck out Contreras on a full-count pitch and then shouted at him as he walked away. The word “boy” carries a well-documented racist history in the United States. Contreras, a native of Venezuela, declined to say directly whether he believed race played a role in Cavalli’s choice of words when reporters asked him after the game.
Cavalli, 27, said the reaction weighed heavily on him overnight. “My teammates know me, my family knows me, this organization knows me,” he said. “I couldn’t sleep because of it. It hurt my heart, knowing that, if there’s a 13-year-old Black kid in D.C. that sees that — that looked up to me and thinks that he perceived it in a way that wasn’t intended the way that it came out, and then he’s not looking up to me anymore — that hurts my heart.”
The right-handed pitcher said he does understand the weight the word carries. “There’s a history behind that word, and that’s just something that as a competitor, like in football or basketball, playing whiffle ball with my brother, you don’t understand it,” Cavalli said. “And then it gets perceived in a way that was not my intention, and then you learn from that. It’ll never happen again.”
Cavalli said he had no idea about the public reaction until he returned to his hotel room that evening. “I looked at my phone, and I saw what people were saying about me. Saw how torn up my wife was. It hurt my heart,” he said. “I couldn’t believe it. I really couldn’t. Because I know that people know me, and they know my character, and that’s not me. So, it was hard. I truly didn’t sleep last night.”
After being struck out, Contreras turned and fired back at Cavalli, asking “Are you talking to me?” The exchange escalated quickly, and Contreras charged toward the mound before players intervened to stop him. He attempted to fling his helmet toward the pitcher over the crowd of players separating them.
Order was restored relatively fast, but the altercation resulted in ejections for Contreras, Boston interim manager Chad Tracy, Red Sox outfielder Nate Eaton, and Washington pitcher Miles Mikolas.
Cavalli said he has not yet reached out to Contreras personally. “I have not reached out to him. I know that we’re both competitors, I hope that he hears this and he understands that was not what was intended at all,” Cavalli said. “I think he knows that. But if I see him, I want to make sure that he knows that.”
