The weirdest story in baseball right now involves fantasy football and group chat jokes gone wrong.
A pregame altercation between Reds outfielder Tommy Pham and Giants outfielder Joc Pederson on Friday saw Pham slap Pederson and the two being separated. On Saturday, (grainy) video of the incident emerged, showing Pham loading up and giving Pederson a pretty hard smack, earning himself a three-game suspension from Major League Baseball in the process, and Pham said Pederson crossed the line with a joke in a group chat with other MLB players about his old team, the Padres, and there was also a dispute over a fantasy football league where “big money” was involved.
BREAKING: 96.3/92.5 The Big Jab has obtained exclusive rights to a never before seen video of Tommy Pham slapping Joc Pederson (via Chad McCormack’s sources) #JocPederson #Pham #tommypham #Joc @MorningJab @MannixBrothers @ThePMJab pic.twitter.com/0oXBwDDRdH
— Chad McCormack☎️ (@mccormack_chad) May 28, 2022
Pham said the group chat comments were “disrespectful” and also referred to himself as a “high roller,” which is an objectively funny thing to say about yourself amid a fantasy football dispute.
Pham said there was “too much money on the line” and “he was messing with my money”
“I’m a big dog in Vegas. I’m a high roller at many casinos.” https://t.co/atfAOnj6Th
— Evan Webeck (@EvanWebeck) May 28, 2022
After the Reds and Giants played on Saturday, Pederson decided to clear up exactly what happened and revealed screenshots of that group chat, in which he made a rather tame joke about the Padres, causing Pham to get very mad and then drop out of the football league — which Pederson did admit involved a lot of money.
Joc showed up with receipts of the fantasy football group chat with Tommy Pham, which included a GIF making fun of the Padres last season pic.twitter.com/rCYbFRdwA8
— SF Giants on NBCS (@NBCSGiants) May 29, 2022
Joc Pederson was waiting for us after the game, with receipts from his group text exchange with Tommy Pham. He sent a GIF of three weightlifters with Giants, Dodgers and Padres logos superimposed on them. The Padres guy collapsed under the weight of his dumbbell. (1/)
— Evan Webeck (@EvanWebeck) May 28, 2022
That was around last September. A few weeks later, Pham dropped out the league. Pederson confirmed "there was a lot of money involved in it."
About seven months later, Pham slapped Pederson across the face.
— Evan Webeck (@EvanWebeck) May 28, 2022
The funniest part of this is Pham getting this mad over a group chat joke and losing money over the fantasy league caused him to lose even more money because of the loss of three game checks for slapping Pederson in the outfield. The lesson, at the very least, is to never confront someone at work over a thing like this where your bosses will see it.
