Boston police have arrested a man accused of hitting someone with a can of beer thrown during the parade celebrating the World Series-winning Red Sox.
Police say 19-year-old Patrick Connolly, of Sandwich, was charged with disorderly conduct and assault and battery with a dangerous weapon. They say it struck but didn’t injure an unidentified man aboard one of the amphibious duck boats carrying players and their families in Wednesday’s parade.
It wasn’t immediately clear if the beer can Connolly allegedly threw was the same can that hit and damaged a World Series trophy, or if the man it hit was a ballplayer.
During the New England Patriots championship parade in Boston in 2017, some players — like Rob Gronkowski — caught beers thrown by fans and drank them. But a number of Red Sox players did not seem happy about the beer tossing.
Here’s Globe photog Stan Grossfeld saving Mookie from flying beer. Fan interference prevents Betts from making another catch pic.twitter.com/1BBn6G8SCJ
— Dan Shaughnessy (@Dan_Shaughnessy) October 31, 2018
The parade that began Wednesday at venerable Fenway Park wound its way through several major downtown streets lined by fans numbering in the hundreds of thousands, some who arrived before dawn to stake out the best vantage point and many clad in Red Sox jerseys, sweatshirts and caps.
Bits of red, white and blue paper rained down on the crowd on the crisp autumn day as they waited for a glimpse of the ballplayers passing in the city’s emblematic amphibious duck boats. The players and members of their families waved down in response from the open-roofed vehicles, and some players autographed balls and tossed them into the jubilant throng.
During a pre-parade ceremony at Fenway, Red Sox manager Alex Cora thanked fans for supporting the team during what he called a “historic season” in which the Sox won a team-record 108 games during the regular season before beating the New York Yankees, Houston Astros and Los Angeles Dodgers in the playoffs.
“I’ve been saying since Day One, this is crazy, this is madness,” said Cora, adding that his players shared the same high expectations of Boston fans.
“And that’s why they are world champs,” he said.
Security was tight along the route, which took the team past the site of the deadly 2013 Boston Marathon bombings. No public drinking was allowed. Uniformed police officers lined the route, and plainclothes officers mingled with the crowds.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.