Injured Dodgers utilityman Enrique Hernandez appeared in the team’s dugout in a banana suit in the 14th and final inning of Los Angeles’ 5-4 win over the San Francisco Giants that finished in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
There’s video, complete with Vin Scully noticing Hernandez but not even mentioning anything about the banana suit because Vin Scully has been calling baseball games for so long that he has probably seen nine other dudes including three Hall of Famers wearing banana suits in dugouts:
[mlbvideo id=”437227083″ width=”660″ height=”370″ /]
The best part? Hernandez wore his banana suit on orders from team president Andrew Friedman.
J.P. Hoornstra of the Los Angeles Daily News has the details:
The 24-year-old utilityman was placed on the 15-day disabled list prior to the game with a Grade 1 hamstring, so he intentionally went inside the clubhouse in the ninth inning, in case the Dodgers happened to win in their final plate appearance. “I came in here to like contain myself,” he said, thinking that he might further injure his hamstring celebrating on the field.
According to Hernandez, Dodgers president of baseball operations Andrew Friedman spotted him in the 12th inning wearing the banana suit. Hernandez said “Andrew saw me and said, ‘you’ve got to go down there.’ I said, I’ll get fined. He said, ‘I’ll pay your fine.’
“Gotta do what the boss says.”
So that’s awesome. One part is still unexplained, though: If Hernandez entered the clubhouse during the ninth inning and Friedman saw him wearing the banana suit in the 12th inning, at what point during that three-inning window did Hernandez decide to put on his banana suit? It was not a travel day for the Dodgers, so it’s not like this is one of those silly rookie hazing things. Maybe he was joking around with some clubhouse attendants, or maybe Kike Hernandez just wears a banana jacket for style.
The Dodgers won the game on an Adrian Gonzalez walk-off homer in the same inning Hernandez arrived in the dugout looking rich in potassium, so presumably we have not seen the last of the thing.
Obligatory:
(Thanks to Hardball Talk for calling our attention to this story.)
