Ballplayer Injures Three Fans
Vince Coleman was one of the greatest base stealers to ever lace up his spikes.
In his first season, he won Rookie of the Year and had 110 stolen bases; which led to people drawing comparisons between him and the GOAT, Rickey Henderson.
But Coleman was a bit of a clubhouse cancer, and after his leg got crushed by a tarp, he wasn’t as valuable on the field. After playing in St. Louis for six years, he signed with the Mets for the ‘91 season, and that’s when his career really started going sideways.
Plagued by hamstring injuries in ‘91 and ‘92, he played about 70 games in each season and averaged about 30 steals a year. During those years, Coleman also had a physical altercation with his manager, and verbally assaulted his third-base coach.
The dude was completely unhinged.
Finally, in ‘93, Coleman finished off his terrible tenure in New York by injuring three fans in the stupidest way possible. After a game at Dodger Stadium, he got into a Jeep with his teammate Bobby Bonilla and Dodgers outfielder, Eric Davis. As a joke, Coleman threw an M-100 “Firecracker” towards a group of autograph seekers about 20 feet away.
And if you don’t know what an M-100 is, these things are pretty damn powerful.
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The blast injured three people, including an 11-year-old boy and a toddler. On August 3, ‘93, the LA district attorney’s office charged Coleman with one count of unlawful possession of an explosive device.He was facing up to three years in prison. Coleman said there was never any ill intent; the whole thing was just an honest accident - a prank gone wrong.
But this quote from a sports journalist referencing the legendary Nolan Ryan-Robin Ventura fight pretty much sums up the public sentiment about Coleman at the time. “It’s a shame Vince Coleman didn’t charge Ryan … Maybe we ought to have Nolan Ryan clean this game up, administer his brand of frontier justice, and restore baseball’s vanishing morality.” - Bernie Miklasz, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
Vince Coleman took an unpaid leave of absence from the team, and shortly after, the Mets told him that he would no longer be welcome back. Coleman hired Robert Shapiro, OJ Simpson’s lawyer, to represent him in the case. Ultimately, he got slapped with three years of probation and 200 hours of community service. Vince also agreed to pay restitution to the victims. Within four years, he was out of the big leagues altogether.
