Ken Pagan’s life changed forever with the extension of his elbow and the flick of his
wrist.
Pagan, an avid hockey and baseball fan, etched his name in MLB postseason lore last October — just for all the wrong reasons.
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Ken PaganFacebook; AP
His name won’t immediately ring a bell like other infamous fans like Jeffrey Maier, the 12-year-old ballhawk who snatched a controversial home-run ball in Game 1 of the 1996 ALCS between the Yankees and Orioles or Steve Bartman, the fan who interfered with a foul ball and watched his beloved Cubs drop the 2003 NLCS to the Marlins.
Pagan’s actions align more with the drunken idiot at every ballgame.
Despite being a man who lived a normal and quiet life as a Canadian journalist, Pagan transformed into the unruly fan who hurled a can of beer at Orioles outfielder Hyun Soo Kim in the seventh inning of the 2016 AL wild-card game in Toronto. It didn’t take long for his life to forever change, thanks to video going viral on social media and MLB banning him from every stadium.
In a long feature story with CBC, Pagan opened up about the drunken antics that turned his world upside down. He admitted he cannot watch a Blue Jays game anymore without feeling some sort of guilt. He even experiences PTSD-like symptoms when he turns on the Jays’ radio broadcast.
“When I hear that voice, I think of the disappointment I’ve brought to the organization,” Pagan said, about the moments he tries to listen to Jerry Howarth, the Blue Jays play-by-play man since 1981. “I was an idiot. I let a lot of people down. I’d rather not sit through nine innings of feeling like that.”
In Pagan’s words, the decision to go to the wild-card game was a late one. His brother and a few friends had tickets to the game and Pagan was able to switch shifts with an employee at Postmedia that allowed him to purchase his own ticket late the night before.
