Jazz enjoying KC heat: 'Never seen nobody boo a bum'

KANSAS CITY -- It was some five decades ago that Reggie Jackson spoke of relishing the negative responses he generated on the road with his ballclub, famously remarking that “fans don’t boo nobodies."

Jazz Chisholm Jr. knows exactly what Jackson meant, or as he put it after Wednesday’s 3-2 Yankees victory over the Royals in Game 3 of the American League Division Series: "I ain’t never seen nobody boo a bum, you feel me?"

Much like Mr. October throughout his celebrated career, the Yankees' third baseman was certainly somebody at Kauffman Stadium, fielding loud jeers from an announced sellout crowd of 40,312 even before the first pitch was thrown.

"I wanted it. That’s the reaction I wanted,” Chisholm said. “I’m glad that we got it. It got our juices flowing. It got us going. It got the team going. We loved it."

Chisholm became a target for Kansas City fans after his comments following the Royals’ 4-2 victory in Game 2 at Yankee Stadium, when he remarked that the Bombers’ confidence hadn’t been dented because Kansas City “just got lucky” over those nine innings.

In social media posts, Chisholm doubled down on that stance, including citing analytics that showed how the Yankees went unrewarded for hard-hit balls thanks to good defensive plays from the Royals, while Kansas City collected hits with lower expected batting averages.

The Yanks’ only extra-base hit of Game 2 was Chisholm’s ninth-inning homer.

Kansas City manager Matt Quatraro acknowledged that his players “heard it,” but that Chisholm’s commentary “wasn’t something that was like, ‘Oh, everybody has got to hear this’ kind of thing."

Wednesday’s crowd clearly did, with Chisholm receiving the loudest boos during pregame introductions ahead of Kansas City’s first home postseason game since the 2015 World Series.

"He handled it well,” Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. “That's good for the playoffs, to have a little bit of that. I don't think he meant any disrespect by it at all. You know, it made for a little better environment.”

"Certain players like that kind of stuff,” said outfielder Alex Verdugo. “You could tell he was feeding off the crowd.”

That continued throughout each of Chisholm’s at-bats, including his first trip to the plate in the second inning, when he told catcher Salvador Perez: “I love this [stuff].”

"100 percent, I love it. It’s for me,” Chisholm said. “If I wasn’t a player that they cared about or anything like that, they wouldn’t be out there booing. They’d just let me go do my thing. But obviously, I got to a lot of people, right?"

Chisholm finished the night hitless in four at-bats, but he counted the reaction as a mark in his favor.

"The best thing I heard from the crowd today, I think it was like a 27-year-old man and he was mimicking the girl on the side of him,” Chisholm said. "He was like, ‘You’re 0-for-3!’ But he looked like a big man, so when he did it, I almost cried laughing. It was funny.”