Ryan Howard Seething Over Bottle-throwing Incident; Phillies Investigating

The Phillies are investigating an incident in which a beer bottle was thrown at Ryan Howard as he made his way back to the dugout after grounding out to end Saturday’s game at Citizens Bank Park.
 
“We take this very seriously,” a club spokesperson said on Sunday morning.
 
Howard saw the bottle land at his feet and looked toward the lower-level seats just beyond the Phillies dugout. A video shows Howard shouting toward someone in those seats then alerting a security guard.

The team has stadium security video that shows a fan throwing the bottle at Howard. The team has turned that video over to the Philadelphia Police Department as it tries to determine the identity of the fan.
 
Howard was still seething Sunday morning and he wants action.
 
“It was terrible,” he said. “It was tasteless. They’re looking into it.
 
“I’ve done too much in this town to have that kind of stuff (happen). You want to yell out, ‘You suck,’ that’s whatever. You start throwing stuff, that's when it gets personal.
 
“It was a Bud Light lime bottle. I just turned around and it was down by my feet.
 
“To me, that’s crossing the line and it becomes a security type issue. That stuff infuriates me. You want to yell stuff, that’s fine. When you start throwing stuff … The minute it gets physical, it gets personal. That’s the way I look at it. That’s the way I was raised.”

Howard would like to see some action taken against the fan who threw the bottle.
 
“We have to be held to a higher standard; the fans should be held to a higher standard,” he said. “It’s tough enough playing the game then you’ve got stupid people like that who are going to throw stuff. I mean, it’s not right.
 
“There should be accountability, man. We have to be accountable. Somebody throws something and we’re supposed to sit there and wear it, or get hit? No, we’re human beings first and foremost. People get it twisted. They see the baseball stuff, they don’t see you as a human being.
 
“If you’re on the street and you do that to somebody you might be hauled off. But we're supposed to hold ourselves to a different standard.
 
“Somebody has got to do something. Somebody should get reprimanded. If I had gone into the stands and started to beat this dude up I would have gotten in trouble by Major League Baseball. He probably would have tried to sue me. But it’s OK for him to throw a bottle and go home and be on his merry way? That (crap) don’t work.”

Howard, 36, is hitting just .151 on the season and has recently been relegated to the bench with Tommy Joseph getting playing time at first base. Howard is in the final guaranteed season of his contract with the team.

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