The Time A Jets Kicker Smacked A Ball Boy For Not Rubbing Up The Balls

Since all anyone can talk about today is the various ways in which people manipulate footballs and what dastardly cheaters the New England Patriots are, it seems like as good a time as any to remember the time a mouthy Patriots ball boy got the shit smacked out of him by an opposing kicker for not properly taking care of the footballs.

Way back in 1995, Nick Lowery was the place kicker for the New York Jets. In the middle of an away game against the Patriots, he approached one of the home team's ball boys, a 20-year-old whippersnapper named David Foscaldo, and asked him to do a better job keeping the footballs warm. Things escalated quickly from there:

According to Lowery, Foscaldo snapped, "That isn't my f——-' job, you piece of s—-," when asked to keep the footballs warm after Jets kickoff specialist Don Silvestri complained the one he used to start the second half was "rock hard."

So Lowery slapped him! He just reached back and full-on slapped a 20-year-old ball boy!

In a statement the Patriots issued after the game, the team quoted the ball boy, David Foscaldo, of Foxboro, as saying that Lowery "struck him with an open hand in the face" during the third quarter after he told Lowery he would not provide the rubbed-up footballs for him because it wasn't his job. Ball boys at times will rub up footballs as a courtesy to kickers in cold weather. Lowery missed his only field goal of the game — a 33-yarder in the first quarter.

The NFL of the 1990s was weird as hell.

h/t Jim

[ NYT | NYDN]