NEW YORK — Detroit Tigers outfielder Delmon Young is trying to work out a deal with prosecutors in his hate-crime harassment case, his lawyer said Thursday.
Young appeared briefly in a Manhattan court Thursday for an update on the misdemeanor case. He’s accused of yelling anti-Jewish epithets at a group of tourists, tussling with them and tackling one to the ground in April, when the Tigers were in town to play the New York Yankees.
His lawyer, Daniel J. Ollen, said after court that he and prosecutors are discussing a potential “disposition that’s acceptable to both parties.” The Manhattan district attorney’s office said only that prosecutors aren’t making an offer at the moment.
The 26-year-old Young was standing outside the team hotel in New York when a panhandler, wearing a yarmulke and a Star of David necklace, approached a group of about four Chicago tourists standing nearby, police said.
Young started yelling anti-Semitic epithets, though it wasn’t clear at whom he was shouting, and got into a scuffle with the Chicago group, police said. A 32-year-old man was tackled and ended up with scratches to his elbows, according to police and the criminal complaint.
Young has said he regrets what happened. Ollen has said the player reacted to something that was said to him.
Major League Baseball suspended Young for seven days without pay after the confrontation.
Young is free on $5,000 bond and due back in court Nov. 7, after the World Series is expected to end.
As of Thursday, Young was batting .266, with 12 homers and 43 RBIs for the season. The Tigers are in second place in the American League Central, 2 1/2 games behind the Chicago White Sox. Neither team played Thursday.