Charges eyed in bullpen fracas

Police witnesses: Yankees started it

By John McElhenny and Ralph Ranalli, Globe Correspondent and Globe Staff, 10/13/2003

Boston police plan to seek criminal summonses tomorrow against New York Yankees pitcher Jeff Nelson and outfielder Karim Garcia for their part in Saturday's Fenway Park bullpen fracas that knocked Garcia out of the game and sent a Red Sox groundskeeper to the hospital, police officials said yesterday.

The decision to seek the summonses in Roxbury District Court was based in part on a report on the incident filed by a police detective and officer who witnessed the confrontation, the second episode of fisticuffs in the game.

"They are looking to speak to all involved parties," said Officer Michael McCarthy, a department spokesman. "I would assume they are going to speak to those who were involved, those who were sitting around in the bullpen, and those who tried to break it up."

A police report on the incident indicates that police plan to seek summonses for assault and battery charges against both Nelson and Garcia.

In the report, Detective William Dunn and Officer Michael Pankievich, who were in the bullpen at the time of the incident, said they saw Yankees players "initiate an unprovoked attack upon" the groundskeeper and that "numerous other members of the Yankees bullpen jumped on the victim," either striking him or trying to break it up.

Meanwhile, friends of groundskeeper Paul K. Williams described him as a friendly, mild-mannered teacher of special education students and a passionate Red Sox fan who wore a Red Sox jersey and cap to school and brought extra team logo shirts for his colleagues recently.

Williams suffered numerous injures "to his head, mouth and body (including what appeared to be numerous cleat marks)," according to the police report.

The fight broke out in the ninth inning of Saturday's American League Championship Series game, just after the Red Sox ended the top of the inning by turning a double play. Williams, 24, who was assigned to care for the pitching mounds in the Yankee bullpen, later told team officials that he had been exhorting the crowd with a rally towel when he was attacked by Nelson and other Yankees players.

Nelson, however, said Saturday that Williams "got in his face" when he told the groundskeeper to move to the Red Sox bullpen if he was going to cheerlead for the home team.

"I'm not a guy who's going to attack anyone," Nelson told the Globe yesterday. "I've been in this game way too long, and I'm not going to do any of that stuff. I told you this [Saturday]. But the Boston media and everybody else is saying we attacked this guy. That's wrong."

Garcia, who jumped into the bullpen from his position in right field to join the melee, declined to comment on the incident yesterday to a Globe reporter in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, where the Yankees are staying.

Meanwhile, in New York, Mayor Michael Bloomberg yesterday said Sox ace Pedro Martinez should have been arrested for throwing Yankees coach Don Zimmer to the ground earlier in the game. "If that happened in New York, we would have arrested the perpetrator," Bloomberg told the Associated Press. "Nobody should throw a 70-year-old man to the ground, period. . . . You just cannot assault people, even if it's on a baseball field."

During a news conference Red Sox owners and executives held at Fenway Park last evening, Charles Steinberg, the team's executive vice president for public affairs, said Williams's gesture did not merit an attack. "If that [Williams's towel waving and fist pumping] was poor taste or improper baseball etiquette or decorum, that's something someone can question," he said.

Larry Lucchino, Red Sox president and CEO, said, "We are fully supportive of our employee."

Red Sox officials said Williams had cleat marks on his arm and back when he was examined at a local hospital. The Derry, N.H., resident left the hospital wearing a neck brace Saturday night and has been unavailable for comment.

His father, Paul K. Williams Sr., standing in the rain outside his home in Londonderry, declined to comment on the bullpen incident, except to say that "like the weather, it's just really depressing."

John Fichera, the athletic director of the West Running Brook Middle School where Williams teaches eighth grade, said he was shocked to see his colleague on television Saturday night.

"He is as calm as can be," Fichera said. "It takes a special breed of person to deal with the type of kids he deals with every day. He deals with the stress with a smile all the time."

While he's calm in the classroom, those who know him said Williams is known as an enthusiastic Red Sox booster around the school, which had two Red Sox spirit days during the previous playoff series with the Oakland Athletics.

Red Sox officials said they were cooperating with police and had asked Major League Baseball to look into the incident. Yankee officials, however, have criticized the Red Sox security arrangements for the game and have demanded an apology for the incident.

"There's a lot of mixed opinion among the cops about what is going to happen," said a police official who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Ultimately, the ball is going to be in Paul's court. The police officers involved want to see this thing through."

Globe staff writers David Abel, Peter May, and Gordon Edes contributed to this story