CHICAGO — A disturbing scene unfolded Tuesday night at Guaranteed Rate Field when Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte was brought to tears during a game after enduring a deeply personal verbal assault from a fan.
According to team officials, the fan yelled derogatory remarks about Marte’s late mother while Marte was at the plate in the top of the seventh inning. The comments immediately rattled the 30-year-old All-Star, who appeared visibly emotional during the following half-inning. As the Diamondbacks took the field in the bottom of the seventh, Marte could be seen wiping away tears near the mound during a pitching change.
Diamondbacks manager Torey Lovullo approached Marte during the break, placing a comforting arm around him in a quiet, father-like gesture. “I just reacted as a dad would,” Lovullo later told reporters. “He was sobbing. It hurt. I told him, ‘I love you and I’m with you. We’re all together. You’re not alone. No matter what was said, that guy is an idiot. It shouldn’t have an impact on you.’”
Marte’s mother, Elpidia Valdez, tragically passed away in a car accident in the Dominican Republic in 2017 — just hours after she had spoken to her son on the phone. Her death remains a deep emotional wound for Marte, and the fan’s callous remarks clearly struck a painful nerve.
The offensive fan was ejected from the stadium following intervention by Lovullo and bench coach Jeff Banister, both of whom reported the incident to stadium officials and requested the individual’s removal.
The incident sparked outrage in the Diamondbacks’ dugout. Shortstop Geraldo Perdomo, a close friend and teammate of Marte, did not hold back in his postgame comments.
“That can’t happen,” Perdomo said angrily. “Everybody knows how Ketel is. He’s fun. He plays hard. I feel bad for him. I feel mad about it. I hope MLB does something with that guy. I don’t know who it was, but they’ve got to do something. We can’t keep allowing that kind of [expletive] in this league.”
Perdomo called for the fan to be banned from future MLB games, saying, “He should be banned, for sure.”
Despite the emotional blow, Marte continued to play and even contributed to the team’s 4–1 victory, hitting a home run earlier in the game. Afterward, he declined to speak to reporters, communicating through a team spokesman that he would not comment on the incident.
Lovullo confirmed that he heard exactly what the fan yelled and that it immediately changed Marte’s demeanor. “I looked right at him when I heard it. He looked at the fan, then put his head down. It had an immediate effect. You could see the pain.”
Perdomo added, “Everybody knows Ketel lost his mom. She was the world to him.”
The situation has reignited concerns over fan behavior in Major League Baseball stadiums and sparked calls for stricter accountability and consequences for those who engage in abusive conduct toward players.
