Ronald Acuna reignited his bitter feud with New York Mets fans after the Atlanta Braves star outfielder took a lengthy home run trot around the bases during Monday’s game
21:14 ET, 23 Jun 2025Updated 21:14 ET, 23 Jun 2025
Ronald Acuna Jr. took a lengthy home run trot during Monday’s game(Image: Getty Images)
There appears to be no love lost between Ronald Acuna Jr. and New York Mets fans.
On Monday, Acuna took the field at Citi Field for the first time since tearing his left ACL last May. Upon rejoining the Atlanta Braves exactly one month ago, the 2023 National League MVP has swiftly reestablished himself as one of the best players in MLB — and didn’t take long to once again show why.
In the top of the third inning, Acuna hammered an 81 mph curveball off starter Paul Blackburn 419 feet to dead center. The powerful blast marked the 27-year-old’s ninth home run since being reinstated from the injured list and extended his active on-base streak to 19 games.
As Acuna rounded first base following the long ball, he mimicked pulling a pin out of a grenade with his teeth and tossed it at the Mets dugout while covering his ears.
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Once droves of Mets supporters began raining down boos, Acuna began waving both his arms to quiet the rowdy crowd. He then stopped in between second and third to deploy a stutter step before finally touching home.
This is hardly the first time that Acuna and Mets faithful have butted heads. Speaking to reporters back in 2021, the outfielder revealed that he actually relishes being heckled at Citi Field shortly after egging on fans with an ‘I can’t hear you’ gesture following a long ball.
“I enjoy it a lot,” Acuna said at the time through interpreter Franco Garcia. “I feel like I’m getting booed every time I go out there and I’m getting booed on the field, so I think to myself, ‘OK, I’m gonna wait until I do something. I’m gonna say something.’
“And then as soon as I hit it out, I didn’t hear anything, so it got pretty quiet. So as soon as I started around the bases, I just motioned like this [gesture] because no one was saying anything. It got real quiet after that.”
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Acuna’s latest celebration is certainly going to turn heads, however, given the recent controversy it stirred.
On April 8 and 10 of this year, Memphis Grizzlies star Ja Morant drew considerable backlash for deploying the same grenade gesture after making a shot from behind the arc. Just several days prior, he was forced to pay a $75,000 fine for making an imaginary gun-aiming gesture.
During a subsequent episode of ‘Inside the NBA,’ Charles Barkley slammed Morant for his “immature” antics.
“I know one person’s happy right now,” Barkley began. “[Former Grizzlies head coach] Taylor Jenkins ain’t got to deal with this c—. He’s going to get another job that he deserves. [He’s saying], ‘I don’t have to deal with this immature stuff.'”
Fellow analyst Kenny Smith shed light on Morant’s history with guns, adding: “He has a history that maybe he should leave the celebrations where people might die alone.”
Shaquille O’Neal expressed a similar sentiment, chiming in: “He knows what he’s doing because y’all are going to keep talking about it.”