Washington Nationals pitcher Cade Cavalli apologized Wednesday for calling Boston Red Sox catcher Willson Contreras “boy” following a strikeout on Tuesday night.
Cavalli told Contreras to “sit down, boy” after striking him out in the fourth inning of Washington’s 8-1 win in Boston.
Contreras responded to the slight by tossing his helmet toward Cavalli, and both benches cleared for a brief scuffle.
Contreras was ejected from the game, but Cavalli apologized for his role in the brawl and noted that there was “no ill intention.”
“I couldn’t sleep because of it,” the pitcher told reporters. “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.”
Nationals manager Blake Butera and president of baseball operations Paul Toboni reportedly met with Cavalli on Wednesday morning. They informed the 27-year-old of the potential racial considerations at play — which many critics on social media pointed out — when he called the Venezuelan Contreras “boy.”
“There’s a history behind that word, and that’s just something that, like, as a competitor, like in football or basketball, playing whiffle ball with my brother, like, just, you don’t understand it, and then it gets perceived in a way that was not my intention,” Cavalli said, according to The Athletic. “You learn from that, and it’ll never happen again.”
Cavalli earned the win on Wednesday night with a career-best performance, tossing seven innings of one-hit ball with 13 strikeouts.
Contreras has spoken with reporters about the mental anguish caused by the recent earthquakes in his native Venezuela. He was moved to tears after hitting a home run in Monday’s 6-3 win over the Nationals.
“Everything that’s going on in Venezuela, it’s not easy to hide,” Contreras said. “It’s not easy just to show up and play with everything that is going on in my country.”
The two squads were playing a rubber match on Wednesday.
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