Yankees Beer Vendor Says He Was Suspended For Joking With Boston Red Sox Player

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A beer vendor at Yankee Stadium says he was suspended for joking with a Boston Red Sox player.

Steve Lazarus, 53, says he's been selling beers for the Yankees since he was 19-years-old. That is until last Sunday's double-header with the Red Sox when Lazarus says he had an exchange with Sox relief pitcher Alfredo Aceves.

Lazarus says a bunch of the vendors were by a freight elevator when they heard cleats, saw Aceves and decided to have a little fun.

"I go up to him and I say 'hey you got ID,'" Lazarus told 1010 WINS. "And he grabbed his crotch and said 'I got your ID right here' and we all got a laugh out of it."

But apparently, some managers who saw the encounter didn't think it was funny and Lazarus was summoned to his supervisor.

"They said I was harassing a Boston ball player and I said 'you've got to be kidding me," said Lazarus.

So the longtime beer man says he had to hand over his badge and was escorted out. Days later, he got a call that he was suspended for two games.

"I was all up in the air because it was playoff games and I never miss playoff games and our money has been down since we moved across the street," he said.

Lazarus says he doesn't understand what the problem was in the first place.

"I wasn't really looking in his face, but I would assume by his response, it was a joke," Lazarus said about Aceves. "I said it in a joking way."

He says the suspension especially hurts because vendors' incomes have been cut in half since the Yankees moved in to the new stadium.

"Money had been down like 40, 50 percent because of the nature of the stadium," he said. "With the dynamics of people who don't buy as much beer from the vendors and they have the waiter service and we're not in the field at all from foul pole to four pole, so our salaries are down. I said 'could you suspend me next year' and they said 'no.'"

Lazarus comes off his suspension on Sunday, but has mixed feelings about going back to work.

"I'm not looking forward to it, believe or not," he said. "It would be like any job that you got laid off or suspended or fired and come back, you don't really want to do it in the beginning. But once I start selling, I'll feel like, alright I'm back."

Aceves was with the Yankees for the past few seasons before joining the Red Sox this year.

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