Everything we have learned about 38-year-old Yankees fan Austin Capobianco these past 24 hours has been against our will. But that should be expected when a fan aggressively tries to pry a ball away from Mookie Betts during the World Series.
Yet, the Yankees deserve some credit here. For how unlikeable Capobianco appears to be, the team certainly knew how to win a PR battle.
As Capobianco — who was banned from attending Wednesday’s Game 5 of the World Series — made his media rounds to soak up his 15 minutes, he complained to Newsday about how the Yankees not only banned him from the game but also confiscated his tickets. He would have liked to give the tickets to his brother and friends. Instead, he was forced to settle for a refund.
Yankees fan Austin Capobianco tells Newsday via text: “The banning to tonight’s game was kind of expected, but the fact my little brother and his friends can’t use our season tickets tonight has really pissed me off. It’s not like they can go to the next game.”
— Anthony Rieber (@AnthonyRieber) October 30, 2024
Capobianco deserved zero sympathy even before those comments, and the Yankees couldn’t have responded better. The team decided to redistribute those tickets to a pediatric cancer patient and his family.
From the Yankees, about the fan who will sit in the seats left behind by the two fans kicked out of Game 4: Calvin Young was one of approximately 80 children from families battling pediatric cancer invited to a “Kids Only” Press Conference at Yankee Stadium on Sept. 13, in which…
— Buster Olney (@Buster_ESPN) October 30, 2024
Well done, Yankees.
And that’s one way to get Capobianco out of the spotlight — that time can’t come soon enough.
