Yasiel Puig tweets welcome to Giants fan Goff: #PuigYourFriend

ESPN logo
Saturday, April 30, 2016

Dodgers outfielderYasiel Puig has reached out via Twitter to Los Angeles' newest sports star,Jared Goff, who happens to be a lifelong fan of the rivalSan Francisco Giants.

Puig took to Twitter on Friday, one day after theLos Angeles Ramsselected Goff with the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft, and retweeted a 2013 post from the former Cal quarterback.

One day after the Dodgers star celebrated a walk-off home run with an emphatic bat flip and a slide into home plate, Goff wrote, "I really hope Yasiel Puig gets a fastball in his ribs tomorrow" in a tweet posted July 29, 2013.

Puig responded to the tweet Friday by inviting Goff to a Dodgers game in a message that included #PuigYourFriend and #PuigNotLate.

Goff, in his introductory news conference Friday, responded: "I will take him up on that offer."

Rams coach Jeff Fisher then piped in, saying, "This is going to be a good answer because we prepped him on it."

Goff then concluded: "It was a really cool move for him to do that, to tweet me like that and I do plan on taking him up on that, hopefully this summer and I can go catch a game."

Goff later tweeted, in part, "Let's just forget that (2013) tweet happened."

Goff is a native of Novato, California, which is located about 30 miles north of San Francisco. He acknowledged Thursday night that he has "gotten a lot of grief" about his Giants allegiance but also said he would be "open" to a change of heart.

"We'll see," Goff said. "That's what I just told the fans. I said, 'We'll see.' It's going to be kind of a growing process. We'll see what happens. I'm open. I'm not going to shut it down."

Puig, who is in his fourth season with the Dodgers, has been a central figure in Los Angeles' rivalry with the Giants. The Cuban outfielder helped incite a benches-clearing incident in 2014 after he was plunked by Giants ace Madison Bumgarner.

Information from ESPN.com's Nick Wagoner was used in this report.