Los Angeles Dodgers utility man Kiké Hernández was feeling good after his team finished off the San Diego Padres in the NLDS. Perhaps a little too good.
More than two months after the Dodgers’ win in Game 5 of the NLDS, Hernández revealed that the F-bomb he lobbed on live television earned him a fine and nearly much more.
The fun came in his postgame interview with Fox Sports’ Ken Rosenthal. When asked what was different about this year’s Dodgers team, which had just reached the NLCS for the first time in three years, Hernández asked if they were live and then bluntly said “The fact that we don’t give a f***” with an impish grin.
Curiously, the uncensored video of the answer is still up on Fox Sports’ MLB account.
In an interview with “The Shop,” LeBron James’ talk show, Hernández revealed the league was not happy with his language. He was allegedly facing a suspension, which would have kept him out of Game 1 of the NLCS, but avoided that part of the punishment due to the efforts of his agent at Wasserman and his representatives with the MLB Players Association.
He did, however, receive a fine and gave an apology he admitted was half-hearted.
Hernández’s full answer:
“I did get fined for that. I was going to get an even heftier fine and I was going to get a game suspension, but having a good agent and having a good player union came in handy,. They got rid of the suspension and they got to lower the fine a little bit, which was good. I did have to apologize, which you could say 50/50 on the honesty part of it.”
What I answered was my honest answer from the bottom of my heart and I didn’t think there was any other way of describing the team. “I felt like I had already taken a while to think about my answer, because I didn’t want to answer it that way. But when I asked if we were live he said yes and I figured ‘there’s got to be some sort of delay.’ There was no delay and I was on live TV cussing. And there was a lot of criticizing that.”
Hernández being available in Game 1 of the NLCS paid off for the Dodgers, as he went 2-for-4 with two runs in a 9-0 rout. And then, of course, they won the World Series.
Hernández, who has always been highly valued by the Dodgers for his defensive versatility, came up huge in that run with a .294/.357/.451 postseason performance at the plate. Now a free agent, he remains a possibility to return to the team amid a busy offseason.
