Jazz Chisholm Jr. spent Monday night becoming the most-discussed lollipop consumer in professional sports. On Tuesday, he made sure the conversation ended on his terms.
The Yankees second baseman drilled a go-ahead two-run home run against the Tigers in the top of the sixth inning, then returned to the dugout and held a bucket of lollipops up to the camera. The celebration was a direct callback to the incident that had consumed baseball's news cycle for the previous 24 hours.
The controversy
During Monday's 5-3 loss to Detroit at Comerica Park, television cameras caught Chisholm sucking on a Blow Pop while playing second base in the fifth inning. The Yankees were trailing 4-1 at the time. He didn't commit an error on the play, but the optics of a defender mid-candy during a deficit set off the kind of discourse that only baseball and social media can co-produce.
Yankees manager Aaron Boone didn't hold back. "That pisses me off," Boone said Tuesday, adding that he didn't know about the lollipop until after the game. He confirmed he spoke with Chisholm privately and considered the matter closed, though he kept the specifics of the conversation between them.
The answer
Chisholm's sixth-inning blast against Detroit was his 12th home run in 52 games since late April and his sixth in the last 18 games — a hot stretch that has quietly made him one of the more productive bats in the Yankees lineup. The lollipop celebration turned a disciplinary footnote into a signature moment, the kind of personality-forward play that makes Chisholm either the most entertaining or most infuriating player in the sport depending on who you ask.
Sources: CBS Sports, Sports Illustrated
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