No one out … yet

BOSTON — The Boston Red Sox and Major League Baseball on Friday began looking into an incident between New York Yankees star Gary Sheffield and a fan in the right-field corner at Fenway Park.

The confrontation came in the eighth inning of Boston’s 8-5 win over New York on Thursday night while Sheffield was fielding Jason Varitek’s two-run triple in front of the 3-foot high barrier.

No decision on discipline was expected Friday, baseball said.

Before their night game at Baltimore, the Yankees said Sheffield would not comment until MLB and the Red Sox completed their investigations. But Sheffield later spoke, adding that team management had advised him “not to say anything else.”

“Everything happened so fast,” Sheffield said. “You have to look at the tape and pass your own judgment. I can’t stand here and try to convince you one way or the other.

“I hold my opinion to myself,” he said. Asked whether he would have done anything differently, he said: “I don’t think so; I doubt it.”

Red Sox president Larry Lucchino met for 75 minutes with chief legal officer Lucinda Treat, chief operating officer Mike Dee and director of security Charles Cellucci, said Charles Steinberg, Boston’s executive vice president for public affairs.

“It was clear that Lucchino wasn’t treating this lightly,” said Steinberg, who also attended the meeting.

Yankees owner George Steinbrenner, through spokesman Howard Rubenstein, declined to comment except to say: “It’s in the commissioner’s hands.”

The commissioner’s office told the Associated Press that Bob Watson, baseball’s head of discipline, was reviewing tapes of the play and security chief Kevin Hallinan was expected to talk to Red Sox officials.

Steinberg didn’t release the fan’s name or say whether he had season tickets. The fan was ejected but not arrested.

The testy rivalry between the Yankees and Red Sox now gets more than a month to cool down. The teams next play on May 27 at New York.

As the ball rolled, the fan reached over the wall and made a sweeping motion with his arm. Sheffield said he was hit in the mouth.

Sheffield picked up the ball, pushed the fan, then threw the ball to the infield. Sheffield then confronted the fan but did not punch him.