For some Yankees fans, Domingo German’s imperfect past made his perfect game hard to root for – The Denver Post

The pursuit of perfection often unites the baseball world.

As a spotless pitcher marches toward the final outs, baseball diehards and casuals alike will turn their TVs on in hopes of witnessing history. Even those who don’t root for the team involved will lend their support, as only 24 perfect games have ever been recorded.

But the 24th — twirled by the Yankees’ Domingo German in an 11-0 win over the A’s on Wednesday night — brought about more mixed reactions than the typical perfecto. Some, including Yankees fans, simply couldn’t bring themselves to root for a pitcher who, in 2019, was suspended 81 games for violating Major League Baseball’s domestic violence policy.

“My first thought was, ‘Oh, god, we’re gonna have to celebrate this guy for doing this,’” Stacey Gotsulias, a fan who hosts the “Locked On Yankees” podcast, told the Daily News. “So I took it as being happy that the perfect game happened, that the Yankees won the game, but not being happy for him necessarily just because of all the stuff that happened with him. Because it’s pretty bad, and people definitely leave it out when they talk about him as if they forgot it happened, which is the most frustrating part about it.”

German, in the midst of a breakout season, was put on administrative leave in September 2019. At the time, his ban was the longest-ever for a player who had been investigated for domestic violence allegations but never criminally charged. It came down after German became physically violent with his then-girlfriend, Mara Vega, at a team function. According to The Athletic, an intoxicated German slapped Vega in front of teammates and their families at a charity gala hosted by CC Sabathia. An MLB investigation found that the violence continued at their home that night, and another Yankees player and their wife had to drive to the house and intervene.

NJ.com reported that the teammate was Luis Severino.

“Sometimes you don’t get to control who your teammates are, and that’s the situation,” former Yankees reliever Zack Britton said when German rejoined the team for the 2021 season. German finished serving his suspension during the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign.

Some fans have since shared sentiments similar to Britton’s, but the Yankees never cut German.

“It’s just a little upsetting that he’s been on the team this long,” one Yankees fan, who goes by the Twitter name Hoodie Maybin, told the News. The fan added that he felt the same way about former Yankees closer Aroldis Chapman, who also remained on the team after serving a lengthy domestic violence suspension.

“In this kind of industry, they overlook that kind of thing if someone’s a productive player, so it makes it a little hard,” the fan continued.

Randy Wilkins, the filmmaker who directed the Derek Jeter docuseries “The Captain,” would’ve liked to have seen the Yankees move on from German, too. That never happened, though, so he tries to focus on just rooting for the team.

He never considered abandoning his fandom or boycotting the club, but he wishes the Yankees would have taken a “hardline stance” on domestic violence years ago.

He accepts that they went in another direction, though, and he respects those who chose to celebrate German’s achievement. It just wasn’t for him.

“I don’t particularly feel happy for German, but I recognize the historic nature of the accomplishment and I wouldn’t take that away from other people that wanted to celebrate the accomplishment itself,” Wilkins told The News. “Like I don’t pass judgment on anybody that celebrated him or the actual perfect game. I know that it’s rare.”

Rather, Wilkins focused on how the Yankees’ employment of German has created a rift among the fanbase, a community he engages with frequently on social media. He has no issue debating player performance, roster moves and managerial decisions.

But when Wilkins shared his personal feelings on German after the perfect game, he quickly found himself in hostile back-and-forths with other users who only wanted to focus on German’s actions between the lines.

“It’s unfair for fans to have to make a moral choice based on somebody else’s behavior, Wilkins said. “And it bothers me that, in many instances, fans are fighting amongst themselves, when really, we’re not the ones that behaved in that manner.

“I’m fully on board with people wanting to celebrate him and what happened because I recognize the feat, but the fact that there was a division to begin with is ultimately my issue.”

As Gotsulias noted, German’s past actions are part of his legacy, whether he or segments of the fanbase like it or not. The same goes for his perfect game and, more importantly, the steps German has taken to try and better himself off the field.

German has said that he battled depression after his 2019 incident, as he realized it could’ve destroyed his family and career. The 30-year-old, who was drinking prior to the incident, told the “Con Las Bases Llenas” podcast that he had an “addiction.”

The pitcher has also sought counseling and read self-improvement books, according to NJ.com.

“At the beginning, it was very hard,” German told NJ.com in the spring. “When you go through something like that, there’s a lot of blame. You blame yourself and you question yourself. You question the decisions you made. But you communicate, and time helps. And then little by little, you start getting past it. You keep communicating and find a way to re-establish your family.”

German and Vega are now married with three children.

“I feel like he’s put that work in more than others,” Gotsulias said. “There’s some people who are way too far over on the spectrum with the zero-tolerance, because I feel like if someone is showing that they’re trying to improve themselves, that’s much better than someone who doesn’t. There were so many people who were of the zero-tolerance feeling just completely diminishing what he did [Wednesday].”

The unnamed fan, meanwhile, acknowledged that releasing German would’ve been “complicated because I’ve seen some statistics about people being unemployed and it could… potentially lead to more [violence].”

Wilkins added that he “would never advocate for someone to lose total employment because of their actions,” but he wished that the rehabilitation process could happen with a team that doesn’t cause him conflict as a fan. “I prefer that he not be employed by the team that I invest in.”

With these conflicted fans so dedicated, they sought other avenues for appreciating German’s perfect game. Some honed in on the night’s historical elements, while others got excited about an offensive outburst that has alluded the Yankees in recent weeks.

All were happy for longtime catcher Kyle Higashioka, who received the franchise’s fourth perfect game.

“I was definitely happy for Kyle Higashioka,” the unnamed fan said, “because I don’t think there’s anyone who deserves to catch a perfect game more than him.”

And as for German?

“I sincerely hope that he has grown from it,” Wilkins said. “And I sincerely hope that his family has been able to move on from it and that they built something that won’t allow something like that to happen again.”

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