Man charged with beating New Yorker over Yankees
FALMOUTH, Mass.—A man was ordered held without bail Monday for allegedly beating a New York man with a baseball bat because he thought the man was a Yankees fan.
As it turned out, the New Yorker allegedly beaten in the land of the Red Sox isn't even a big baseball fan.
Police say Robert Correia, 20, and others spotted a car with New York license plates leaving a fireworks display Friday. The group approached the car and began yelling about the Yankees, according to the police report.
Police did not identify the victim, but the New York Post identified him as William Nestor, 29, of Northport, N.Y. Nestor said his family was traveling in two cars and stuck in heavy traffic after the fireworks on Cape Cod when he was attacked.
"When they saw the plates, they came at me," Nestor told the newspaper.
The police report said after Nestor confronted the group of men, Correia went to his nearby apartment in Falmouth and got an aluminum baseball bat, then struck Nestor three times.
But Correia's lawyer, Robert Nolan, said the man was in his apartment when he noticed a fight outside and grabbed a bat to try to break it up.
Correia told Nestor to drive away, but Nestor "came at him" as if he was going to hit him, Nolan said. Correia said he struck Nestor once with the bat.
"He said in self-defense, he swung the bat at the guy and hit him in the arm," Nolan said.
Nolan said Correia did not participate in any Yankees taunting.
"He heard nothing about Yankees, New York-Red Sox, Yankees suck -- nothing like that," he said.
"He was trying to defuse the situation," Nolan added. "The mistake was probably to bring the bat out there."
Correia pleaded not guilty to charges of assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and malicious damage to a motor vehicle. He was ordered held without bail until a detention hearing Wednesday.
Nestor told the Post he's not a particularly big baseball fan and didn't know the Red Sox were playing the rival Yankees over the weekend. He was treated and released from Falmouth Hospital.
In May, a New Hampshire woman was charged with second-degree murder and drunken driving in a fatal crash following an argument over the Yankees and the Red Sox.
Ivonne Hernandez, 43, told police she was trying to scare off a group of people who were hitting her car and saying "Yankees suck" after they spotted a Yankees sticker on her rear windshield. Police said Hernandez drove away from the group, then turned around and headed directly toward them. Matthew Beaudoin, 29, of Nashua, was killed, and a woman suffered minor injuries.
