Yankees upset about how long it took to catch fan on field

DETROIT -- It was not the finest moment for Comerica Park security.

With Phil Hughes one out away from his first nine-inning complete game Sunday, his task was interrupted by a male fan who emerged from the stands in leftfield. The fan made it about halfway across the outfield, it seemed, before anyone started giving chase. He had time to ask Robinson Cano for a glove -- "I said I didn't have a glove," Cano said -- and make his way to Nick Swisher in right for a fist-bump.

Swisher acquiesced almost sheepishly. "I was like, 'Don't run over here . . . Oh, man, he's still running over here,' " he said. "He was like, 'Come on, Swish, come on, Swish.' I was like, 'Well, you're going to jail,' so [why not]."

Swisher was not tempted to pull a Mike "Mad Dog" Curtis, the Colts linebacker who decked a fan who ran onto the field during a 1971 NFL game at old Memorial Stadium. "Situations like that, just back off and let the guys who are supposed to take care of it," Swisher said.

That was the problem: Those "guys" were slow to react. "That can't happen," Joe Girardi said. "People have to get out there. You worry about your guys. I don't know what he was doing with Swish, but you worry."

Mark Teixeira threw his arms up twice as he watched the fan make his way from leftfield to the end of the infield, back to the outfield and eventually to Swisher before finally getting taken down in the grass behind second base.

"I was yelling at the umpires and the security; I'm like, 'You can't let those guys go up to our players,' " Teixeira said. "Most stadiums are on it in seconds."

That was the case last year -- here, in fact -- when a fan, trying to leap onto the field from the top of the Yankees' dugout, fell into the dugout and landed a short distance from Girardi. Security pounced on him.

"That guy ran around for a couple of minutes, it seemed like," Teixeira said of Sunday's incident. "You hope they don't have time to go up and fist-bump players. Swish was cool about it, but there's plenty of crazy fans who haven't been so calm in that situation and are actually looking to cause harm."