Padres’ Pham plans to speak with MLB about fan abuse

San Diego Padres outfielder Tommy Pham is tired of being taunted about an offseason incident in which he was stabbed outside of a strip club, and he plans to bring his concerns to Major League Baseball.

“I need to talk to MLB,” he said, according to Kevin Acee of the San Diego Union-Tribune. “The vulgarity this year, the gestures, I’ve never seen it at this level. I want to know if this is just because fans have been gone for a year and now they’re back and acting a certain way. That (stuff) shouldn’t be tolerated.”

Pham said it’s common for Petco Park fans to insult him about the incident, which resulted in the outfielder suffering what he called “catastrophic injuries” that required back surgery.

“Fans have been very disrespectful this year,” he said. “I actually saw a fan who was talking (trash) to me. I saw him outside the stadium. I said, ‘What’s up? You still want to talk that (trash)?’ He went completely blank. That just shows you people feel entitled.”

The 33-year-old said fan behavior during road games has been even worse. Pham had a spectator removed during a contest in Houston earlier this season for directing abusive language and gestures toward him.

Pham, who heard the brunt of the insults during an early-season slump, has turned things around lately, hitting .325/.460/.525 with five steals in 13 games in June.

If his work at the plate isn’t enough to silence the critics, Pham said he’ll tune them out as best as he can for now.

“I’m a strong individual,” he said.

Raptors’ Lowry fed up with fan abuse: ‘It’s kind of getting crazy’

A fan pushed Toronto Raptors guard Kyle Lowry after he dove into the stands for a loose ball late in the fourth quarter of Thursday’s 115-109 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers.

It’s the second time a spectator courtside has made physical contact with Lowry, and the Raptors star is fed up.

“You’re diving for a loose ball and a fan’s pushing you, it’s unbelievable man,” Lowry told reporters postgame, according to Sportsnet’s Michael Grange. “Our fans, our NBA fans, shouldn’t be represented by people like him.

“It’s the second time it’s happened to me and it’s kind of getting crazy because next time it happens I don’t know if I’ll be able to control myself and hopefully I will … I couldn’t really react because I was in mid-play, but it will come up. Fans like that shouldn’t be in our buildings, in our arenas.”

During Game 3 of last year’s NBA Finals, Golden State Warriors minority owner Mark Stevens pushed Lowry and directed obscene language toward the All-Star guard after a similar play. Stevens was given a one-year ban from attending any league games or team activities and fined $500,000.

Last October, the NBA enacted a zero-tolerance fan code of conduct, aiming to curb abusive and hateful behavior toward players after courtside ejections more than doubled in 2018-19.

“We’ve added any sexist language or LGBTQ language, any denigrating language in that way, anything that is non-basketball-related,” NBA executive vice president and chief security officer Jerome Pickett told The Associated Press’ Tim Reynolds. “So, ‘your mother’ comments, talking about your family, talking about test scores, anything non-basketball-related, we’ve added that in as well as being something that we will go and pull a fan out of the seat and investigate what happened.”