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player ready...The 21-year-old Cubs fan who threw a beer on a Phillies outfielder said Friday he was caught up in the “heat of the moment” and hoped his actions would not taint the Cubs’ image.
“I am a true fan. I love the Cubs,” Johnny Macchione, 21, of Bartlett told the Tribune.
He said his decision to throw the beer on Shane Victorino during the fifth inning Wednesday night was not premeditated or encouraged by his friends.
“It was just an impulse move,” he said. “There’s no excuse for it.”
Dan DeLaPaz, 30, wrongly accused in the incident, said his initial reaction to the ordeal was to laugh.
“[I was] just raising my arms, saying, ‘It wasn’t me, it wasn’t me, what’s going on?'” he told David Kaplan on WGN-AM on Friday night of security guards taking him to a detainment area. “In their mind they thought they had the right guy; like it was kind of ‘OK, we’re just getting the answers out of you, but we also know it was you.'”
When DeLaPaz was released, he met up with Macchione, whom he said he didn’t know well, and others at Harry Caray’s in Wrigleyville. There, Macchione told him he threw the beer.
“I was more in shock and to be honest I couldn’t fully get mad yet,” DeLaPaz said ” … I was so relieved that I was exonerated … that like, my wife’s not going to kill me and I can go home.”
Macchione asked for the forgiveness of Cubs fans, who he said were “the greatest fans in the world,” and said he hoped his actions did not taint their image.
“It was one mistake,” he said. “If I could take it back, I would.”
He said he has learned a powerful lesson: “Every action has implications. No matter how small at the time you think it may be. … “
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On the Internet
WGN-AM’s David Kaplan talked with Macchione and DeLaPaz on “Sports Central” on Friday. Hear the interviews at chicagotribune.com/beertosser