Josh Hader, Punishment, and Redemption
Josh Hader is a lefty relief pitcher for the Milwaukee Brewers. You know this; you read this site. Josh Hader has had, statistically speaking, an awesome season. You don’t accidentally strike out 17 guys per nine — in this case, better than half of all batters he’s faced. And Hader seems to have embraced a role of which other pitchers might be wary of great. So it wasn’t surprising when Jon Heyman tweeted this:
Josh Hader is my new favorite all star. I named him nicest, most unassuming all star and he gave me a lefty fist bump. From nearby Maryland, this is a real treat for him and his family. #crew
— Jon Heyman (@JonHeyman) July 17, 2018
By now, you probably know the rest of this story. During the All-Star Game, whilst Hader was in the midst of a surprisingly poor performance on the mound, Hader’s high-school record suddenly came back to light. As the Washington Post’s Kevin Blackistone explained,
Tuesday night’s revelation [was] that Josh Hader, one of the pitchers showcased in Major League Baseball’s 89th All-Star Game, was a serial hate tweeter as a star athlete at Old Mill High School in suburban Baltimore’s Anne Arundel County.
It’s probably important before continuing to understand what kind of hate, exactly, we’re talking about. (Warning: the content is pretty offensive.)
What we have here is unmistakably racist, homophobic, antisemitic, and misogynistic hate speech. And that doesn’t happen by accident, either.
Much of the coverage of Hader’s past has focused on the fact that the tweets were from 2011 and 2012. Fancred’s Jon Heyman characterized the Hader situation this way:
[W]hile Hader deserves our immediate scorn for his vile words, no one should give up on him. He hasn’t been known to exhibit any bad behavior around the Brewers, and it’s possible he was just an idiot as a kid (some of the tweets are believed to have been taken from a rap song, but that’s really not much of an excuse).
He seems child-like now, so I can only imagine what he was like as a 17-year-old. Perhaps he has matured a lot since.
And while there was some thought MLB would suspend Hader, he instead was ordered into sensitivity training.
Here’s MLB’s complete statement:
During last night’s game we became aware of Mr. Hader’s unacceptable social media comments in years past and have since been in communication with the Brewers regarding our shared concerns. After the game, Mr. Hader took the necessary step of expressing remorse for his highly offensive and hurtful language, which fails to represent the values of our game and our expectations for all those who are a part of it. The Office of the Commissioner will require sensitivity training for Mr. Hader and participation in MLB’s diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Hader has apologized, both to his team and to the public:
Josh Hader addresses the tweets that surfaced during the game pic.twitter.com/Zzh6uS2frH
— Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) July 18, 2018
Which, more or less, brings the situation to the present moment. It appears as though sensitivity training will represent the extent of MLB’s intervention in this issue. Like others, though, I was curious if other options were even on the table. Accordingly, I’d like to address two questions here, both (a) could MLB discipline Hader for actions of seven years ago and, if so, (b) at what kind of punishment could they hypothetically arrive?
As to the first issue, Article XII(a) of the Collective Bargaining Agreement states that a player “may be subjected to disciplinary action for just cause by his Club, the Chief Baseball Officer or the Commissioner.” The question is whether Hader’s tweets constitute just cause for discipline. In a vacuum, they clearly are. The uniform MLB contract, for example, cites “good sportsmanship” in one passage:
Loyalty
3. (a) The Player agrees to perform his services hereunder diligently and faithfully, to keep himself in first-class physical condition and to obey the Club’s training rules, and pledges himself to the American public and to the Club to conform to high standards of personal conduct, fair play and good sportsmanship.
And “good citizenship” in another:
[Termination] By Club
7. (b) The Club may terminate this contract upon written notice to the Player (but only after requesting and obtaining waivers of this contract from all other Major League Clubs) if the Player shall at any time:
(1) fail, refuse or neglect to conform his personal conduct to the standards of good citizenship and good sportsmanship or to keep himself in first-class physical condition or to obey the Club’s training rules; or
(2) fail, in the opinion of the Club’s management, to exhibit sufficient skill or competitive ability to qualify or continue as a member of the Club’s team; or
(3) fail, refuse or neglect to render his services hereunder or in any other manner materially breach this contract.
Hader’s tweets are clearly examples of neither.
And yet… they were from 2011 and 2012, when Hader was a teenager, before he was drafted, before he was a minor leaguer, before he was a member of the Astros’ farm system or the Brewers’ varsity club. (Hader was drafted in June of 2012 by the Orioles. Because he locked his account soon after his tweets became publicly circulated, it’s not clear if he any of his comments were published in June of later.) From a legal perspective, that matters. Disciplining an employee for conduct performed before he’s been hired is a dicey proposition any time it isn’t an at-will relationship. (That’s one reason employers conduct background checks.) That’s because you can’t breach a contract by something you do before a contract is formed.
There are exceptions, naturally — lying or active concealment, for example. (That’s called “fraud in the inducement.”) So if the Astros or Brewers asked Hader if he’d ever made racist tweets, and Hader said no, then there would be grounds both for discipline and potential rescission (cancellation) of the contract by the Brewers.
On the other hand, as noted above, it’s not entirely clear that Hader’s conduct was limited to the period before he was signed. (Furthermore, Hader attempted to dismiss his comments as “some rap lyrics being tweeted.” As the Daily Beast’s Corbin Smith points out, the notion that a tweet featuring just “KKK” or “white power” with a clenched fist represents an example of rap lyrics is improbable.
Hader’s attribution of his comments to rap lyrics appears, at best, to be a weak excuse. And that’s a charitable interpretation. At worst, they’re intentionally misleading — and, if that’s the case, then that is actually something for which both MLB and the Brewers can discipline Hader. Now, there are explanations for this, too. Maybe Hader was embarrassed. Maybe Hader is reluctant to make unqualified apology. We’ve all said things that were stupid, of course. On the other hand, we all have not voiced support for white supremacy and then blamed that support on rap lyrics. And that’s important to note. Hader was not simply advocating for different political views — he appeared to be celebrating a philosophy that advocates racial genocide.
So whereas sensitivity training may be sufficient punishment for the tweets of seven years ago, there’s also the question of what punishment, if any, is appropriate for an apology that quite possibly misrepresents the reality of the situation. In the law, punishments are determined by looking at precedents, parallel situations which came before. But there are no real analogues for this situation. Yunel Escobar was suspended three games for writing a homophobic message in his eye black, but that was while he was playing. Yulieski Gurriel was suspended five games for a racist gesture directed at Yu Darvish, but that, too, was during a game. Some have compared Hader to John Rocker, whose ability to throw 95 mph allowed him to survive for years as the Braves’ closer despite making comments even more racist than Hader’s. But even Rocker eventually faced discipline, in the form of a 28-game, 73-day suspension in 2000; Rocker became the first player ever suspended for public racist comments. And while Rocker’s comments didn’t occur during a game, they were published in a Sports Illustrated interview with Jeff Pearlman after he’d already reached the big leagues.
Perhaps the most analogous situation involves Steve Clevenger, who was suspended for the remainder of the 2016 season for racist tweets calling black youth “thugs” and targeting Black Lives Matter, among others. But even Clevenger’s case isn’t a perfect comparison. On the one hand, Clevenger, too, made racist statements on Twitter and was suspended after apologizing; on the other, Clevenger made those statements during a major-league season. And two other factors that are important to note: Clevenger made the statements on a protected account, so they could only be seen by followers. And Clevenger wasn’t suspended by MLB at all. Instead, he was suspended by the Mariners.
That latter point is important. Hader was disciplined under the Commissioner’s “just cause” authority, but the Brewers have separate authority to discipline Hader. That dual system exists across most professional sports; just last week, the Miami Dolphins announced a policy to suspend for four games (a full quarter of the NFL season) any player who doesn’t stand for the national anthem.
So could MLB, or the Brewers independently, suspend Hader? Almost certainly yes. Even if he could not be punished for the 2011 tweets, any tweets from after the June draft in 2012 (should they exist) and his “misattribution” of “white power” and “KKK” to rap lyrics are punishable both by the Commissioner under the CBA and by the Brewers under the model contract. How do we know? Rocker’s suspension was eventually overturned on appeal — reduced from 28 games to 14 and the fine from $20,000 to $500. But the arbitrator, Shyam Das, found that while there was a cap on fines for off-field behavior, unpaid suspensions for off-field speech, even speech unrelated to baseball, were not in violation of the CBA. In other words, there is ample precedent to support a suspension should the Brewers or MLB decide to impose one.
But it’s doubtful the Brewers are going to suspend him. In his first appearance for the Brewers following the All-Star game, fans at Miller Park gave him a standing ovation. And some of his teammates, including players of color, supported him.
First of all I want to show my support to my friend and teammate, Josh Hader.
He made a mistake 7 years ago. He admitted, he apologized and most important: He learned from it.
— Jesus Aguilar (@JAguilarMKE) July 18, 2018
And Lorenzo Cain added this to MLB.com’s Adam McCalvy:
“He’s young, we all say some crazy stuff when we’re young,” said Cain. “That’s the reason I don’t have social media, things like this. You always get in trouble for things you say when you’re younger. We’ll move on from it. The situation is what it is. I know Hader, he’s a great guy. I know he’s a great teammate. I’m fine. Everybody will be OK. We’ll move on from it.
“At the end of the day, we’ve all said crazy stuff growing up, even when we were 17, 18 years old. If we could follow each other around with a recorder all day, I’m sure we’ve all said some dumb stuff. We’re going to move on from this.”
Asked whether Hader specifically apologized, Cain said, “I didn’t ask for an apology. I wanted to understand the situation before I talked to you guys. … I heard about the hate comments, that’s all I heard. We’ll talk more about it once we get on the plane.”
Josh Hader apologized to his teammates, yes. They accepted that apology, yes — and all we can do is take his teammates’ support at face value. It’s at least worth acknowledging, however, the awkward position in which those teammates have been placed. Hader is, by most metrics, the best relief pitcher in the game and the most dominant left-handed reliever since Billy Wagner. The Brewers, a team in contention, want him on the field, because the step down from Hader to a replacement-level reliever is massive, perhaps the largest in baseball. It’s why the Yankees feel comfortable with Aroldis Chapman. It’s why the Blue Jays have no plans to trade Roberto Osuna. It’s worth asking: did Hader’s teammates accept him because he apologized or because his talent is integral to helping the club earn a spot in the postseason? Would the Brewers — or their fans — accept Hader back if he were pitching like the 2018 version of Brad Brach?
My point here, ultimately, is not that Hader should be run out of baseball. It’s not even that Hader should be suspended, really. But it’d be ideal if there were a resolution to this that ultimately left all parties better off, that helped improve our collective understanding of the pain and fear such vile sentiments can produce. Hader’s conduct to date doesn’t promise that kind of resolution, but there is time for that to change. Jeff Pearlman ultimately never felt sorry for publishing his piece on Rocker. Ideally, looking back on this moment in the future, it will be viewed as transformative and not indicative of worse things to come.
Sheryl Ring is a litigation attorney and General Counsel at Open Communities, a non-profit legal aid agency in the Chicago suburbs. You can reach her on twitter at @Ring_Sheryl. The opinions expressed here are solely the author's. This post is intended for informational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice.
I really don’t think Chapman deserves to be in the same sentence as Osuna. Those are two entirely different situations.
That said while I think the Hader situation is being handled appropriately by the ballclub and MLB, I thought it was a really gross display by Brewers fans to give him an ovation after coming off the mound the other day. It’s one thing to absolve him for the tweets he made, but him apologizing and “making things right” does not mean that anyone should be showering him in praise like that. Not to mention all the people applauding were white & middle aged.
Really embarrassing look for Brewers fans there.
Giving a standing ovation for doing the right thing in correcting something you did wrong does seem counterproductive!
I don’t know if any other team’s fans would be different but I thought the same thing about the ovation Ryan Braun got after his suspension. Especially considering the way he slandered the poor tester after the first time he got caught but got off on the technicality.
I don’t know if there’s a lot of logic in the ovations (both this one and the Braun ovation t mentions). I think it was just a “hey, this guy is under siege, we just want to let him know we support him.” I cannot imagine it’s logical enthusiastically support a guy in response to the guy’s white power tweets.
Which–quite frankly–I find kind of disturbing as well. It’s one thing to brush it under the rug and cheer for him as if nothing happened, figuring the apology is enough. It’s another to give him a standing ovation.
Houston gave a standing o to Gurriel as well after the Darvish thing. It’s disgusting and embarrassing.
I like it. I disagree. The love and power and emotional connection to athletes is very strong. Fans and players share that with applause. We KNOW these are athletes, not special people., or even particularrioy good people. Its a way of saying “we get it, we have fucked up” some of us aren’t even great people, but lets forgive, get away from political shit, and lets play ball
I stand with those Brewers fans who stood up and showed support for a guy who’s being dragged through the mud by the “gotcha” media, which sees what it wants to see (“Hader is a racist!”) by reading a high schooler’s tweets out of context, despite ample evidence that they don’t represent his actual true beliefs or character (judging by the reactions of his teammates and friends who know him far better than any of us do, and by the fact that high school kids say all kinds of stupid and outrageous things to each other to get a laugh).
Out of context? Puh-leeeeze.
Please provide this missing context you speak of for “I hate gay people” that makes it cool to say.
Cool to say? Puh-leeeeze. Don’t put words into my mouth.
The things he said are not ok, and nobody is arguing otherwise.
However, I think the context is very important when sanctimonious folks like you want to jump to the conclusion that these words can only be illustrative of what Hader truly believed or who he was as a person. If he was being sarcastic and/or joking with his friends (as he clearly was in most, if not all of these tweets) then the messages can’t simply be read at face value. That doesn’t make them ok, but it might make your full blown witch hunt, based upon what are probably incorrect assumptions, more than a little out of bounds.
It’s not a witch hunt. Dude posted that he hates gay people and believes in white power. People called him a homophobe and a racist. This is not a witch hunt. Witches are not real. The question of punishment is another issue, but take off the homer glasses.
Saying things that are widely accepted to be racist is racist. Context matters in terms of identifying the best way toward reconciliation, but there’s no witch hunt here.
Wrong.
“Saying things that are widely accepted to be racist is racist.”
Have you ever watched stand up comedy? Is Dave Chapelle a racist? People say things all the time that they don’t mean literally when they are trying to get a laugh. Even stripped of its context, the tweet “(Fist Emoji) white power lol” is clearly meant to be a joke. What else do you suppose the lol means? It’s a bad joke, perhaps, but almost certainly not an indication of his true beliefs. This is what I’m talking about in terms of context.
You folks that want to run Hader through the ringer on this are doing so based upon something that isn’t actually there (like a witch): your hasty conclusion that Hader’s tweets are an indication, at face value, of his true beliefs. That conclusion says more about you, in terms of your inclination to instantly believe the worst about people, than it does about Hader. This is a persistent problem that we face nowadays in our twitter mob culture.
And the same dynamic is at play in your reaction to Brewers fans and their show of support for Hader. You hastily conclude that the ovation was a show of support for the content of Hader’s tweets when it was nothing of the sort.
The problem is the facile idea that each person should only be held accountable for their “true beliefs” that they may or may not express through their intentional actions. How you act is a part of who you are even if it doesn’t reflect your “true beliefs”. As for whether jokes are racist, I agree with your argument that context matters. When white rising star athletes tweet out KKK as a joke, they are being racist (and perpetuating white supremacism). When Mel Brooks portrays the KKK in Blazing Saddles, he’s being satirical. But when comedy is done poorly, there no reason it can’t be racist…in fact, racist jokes are a key element of making clear who does or doesn’t belong in a certain space.
I stand with the groups of people Hader spewed hate toward, because what kind of message does it send to them if I give the guy a standing ovation?
I’m OK with accepting Hader was just a really dumb 17 year old, even if he did lie about the tweets being lyrics to a rap song. That said, what an awful look for Milwaukee fans, and what an awful look for baseball.
I suppose the conclusions you base your comment upon—that his comments are actual hate speech, and that he tried to lie about them—are supported by assertions made in the article above, but they’re not supported by a fair and reasonable look at what actually happened. But go ahead and assume what you mistakenly believe to be the moral high ground.
Oh, hey Brewers fan. I’m perfectly capable of reaching my own conclusions. It seems we differ significantly regarding what a fair and reasonable look consists of. My fair and reasonable look is fairly impartial. I don’t have any particular feelings toward the Brewers. I find what your fan base did to be in poor taste.
Giving a person an ovation makes that person FEEL GOOD. Its an expression of love. The guy did something shitty, and his fans… in his city… gave him some love, some support for a human who is going through a tough thing now. We all fuck up. I disagree with your assessment
As others have more eloquently stated, tweet racist remarks and I will assume you’re a racist until you explain your journey from racism to non-racism.
i dont think he needs an explanation of his journey. he was 17 at the time, not even an adult and certainly not done developing mentally.
Most 17-year-olds don’t tweet out racist, homophobic garbage.
And, if they do, most would have the presence of mind to scrub their history before becoming a public figure.
Isn’t just a 17 year old, it’s a 17 year old who I assume, because of his subsequent sports career, was living a day to day life in an environment that is probably a case study of ‘toxic masculinity’. I read those tweets and the first thing I thought was that this is exactly the type of language a bunch of douchey high school athletes would think is awesome.
Doesn’t make it right, but I do think there should be room in society to say that I was born into something or brought into an environment that taught me certain things that I have since learned to move on from, because it is very, very hard to be introspective enough and independently minded enough to separate yourself from what you are exposed to at a young age, especially if you are in an environment where other individuals enforce conformity.
I heard worse stuff than this from practically everybody I came in contact with in high school. Black, white, asian, indian – much worse stuff. A lot of actual physical violence from those groups, too. Most of those people recognize what they did was wrong when they grew up. The fact Hader wrote it on Twitter shouldn’t change anything.
What kind of hell-hole high school did you go to? Seriously, I saw NONE of that when I went to high school, and that was in the deep South where many would expect to see prejudice. But I went to HS in the early 80s, maybe things have gotten worse since then? I thought that our society was actually becoming MORE inclusive (gay people an actually come out of the closet now, and we had a Black President).
People are literally getting detained on the street right now and asked for citizenship papers for being brown. Do you think this is a good environment for HS boys to learn how to treat other people? Granted, Hader wasn’t in HS under these circumstances…
When I was 17, I probably liked some metal bands a little too much, and had I had Twitter then, would have no doubt said some things I’d be embarrassed by. But I wasn’t a white supremacist. THIS IS NOT NORMAL
He’s not a white supremacist either. Saying some edgy shit when you are 17 does not make you an active member of that group.
They really should start making just leaping and calling people things something that is considered offensive.
I expect the journey he’s made is from 17 year old racist who doesn’t know that the internet is forever, to 24 year old racist who has a very real appreciation of how publicly exhibiting his racism can impact his job and his earnings.
And, you don’t know what you are talking about. I don’t suspect, Im absolutely certain.
Funny how others are definitely wrong about their opinions about someone they don’t know but you’re definitely right about your opinions about someone you don’t know.
Perhaps it’s because you’re willing to make only the most uncharitable assumption about a person you don’t know, based upon a very small and curated set of data points, while others allow room for more nuanced opinion.
“As others have more eloquently stated, tweet racist remarks and I will assume you’re a racist until you explain your journey from racism to non-racism.”
I don’t mean this in a petty way, but why does it matter what you assume? I mean that literally: what is the virtue or utility or value of your assumption in either direction? If the nature of an assumption is that it is a priori, independent of actual knowledge (and a poor substitute for it), why consciously calcify it? Much less proclaim it here?
My point is that we ought to resist proclaiming a judgment of the person and his character, and rather restrict our pronouncements to the comments themselves, which are certainly contemptible. Otherwise we’re just adding another voice to the cacophony of uninformed speculation.
And not for nothing, but my baseline assumption is antithetical to yours. I assume that aberrant and illiberal views about otherness are more likely to dissipate than intensify as we grow up, leave home, and meet new people, as he has done. I’ll grant that your assumption feels better, because it enables you to occupy a position of moral superiority.
Good stuff. Id say it probably doesn’t ultimately feel better though. I agree though, people’s perceptions about people of other races changes over time. People learn. There is still real life, real peopl out there. I liked Lorenzo Cains comments on it “I didn’t ask him for an apology. He’s a good guy, and teammate, and I’ve said some dumb shit too”
We have turned into a society champing at the bit to crucify people and ruin their careers/lives for mistakes they made years and years ago. We build people up as heroes just so we can topple them down. It makes me sick. I, for one, can’t wait for the death of Twitter and other social media.
Posting racist bullshit is not a mistake; it is a deliberate action.
High schoolers say stupid stuff all the time. Rarely does it mean they actually feel this way. Not defending what he said, but to vilify him is absurd.
“say” =/= “broadcast”
What difference does it make? He was 17 and probably had a couple dozen twitter followers at most. He didn’t care because he didn’t think it would be a big deal.
And he was wrong.
Would you feel the same way if a high-schooler repeatedly tweeted that your daughter is a slut who slept with the entire football team?
That’s different – that’s a direct and personal attack. Not even close to the same thing.
That’s fair.
Perhaps trying to understand how black people feel about whites spewing racist garbage might help you in this instance.
“Blacks people” don’t feel anything. Individual people feel things though. Even if you are a black person, you also don’t know how “blacks people” feel. Name a feeling… sadness, happiness, indifference, there are black people feeling the entire spectrum of good and bad emotions about this, right now.
Ah, the old postmodern defense. “Black people don’t feel anything as a group! There are only individuals who are all different. We can’t know anything about them!!” Tell that to the KKK…they were perfectly happy to treat black people as a group. So as long as someone tweets out in the KKK’s name, I think we can talk about the effects on black people as a group.
Ding ding ding.
well if she did, then its not libel. ..
First of all… nothing Hader said is ok. I’m a white guy who did say some awful, racial things in high school. Mostly as jokes, but I said them. I don’t think I’ve ever hated anybody because of color. I think it was because I was a dumbass. The last time I ever said the “n” word was almost 25 years ago, about 10 feet away from a black guy I considered a friend. When I saw the look on his face, I realized how real it was. I’m from the suburbs outside of Chicago; I’ve grown up around all types of people. I know it doesn’t make sense… why would I say things like that if I didn’t mean them. I can’t defend myself. I can tell you is those words are no longer a part of my vocabulary. I think how Hader lives the rest of his life means more than how he’s lived it up to know. This is the time to show the world what type of person he is. I’m withholding judgement and will give him the space to prove that he’s no longer that person.
The fact that his beliefs did not lead im to commit any crimes seems pretty deliberate (and good natured) as well. So what’s your point?
Josh Hader probably also regrets the existence of Twitter…
Nah, you’re missing the point. When you’re a celebrity or public figure, part of what you bring to the table is your public image. People don’t pay LeBron James gobs of money to advertise shoes because he’s great at communicating the virtues of shoes, it’s because it’s good for business to be associated with the image he projects.
When you’re no longer holding up your end of the image bargain employers and sponsors no longer want to be associated with you because it costs them money. (See: Deen, Paula or Gunn, James) It’s not about punishing them.
But we’re not talking about the employers or advertisers. For most people involved, it is very much about punishing.
Aren’t we talking about the Brewers and MLB? Pretty sure they employ him.
rofl…
When I initially saw this reported by MLBFrontOfficeSycophants or whatever, they left out almost every tweet that was genuinely offensive.
Fuck this guy.
Welp, as long as other baseball players aren’t bothered, I guess this wee, John Rocker wannabe gets a pass.
John Rocker said the things he said while being employed by the MLB. Huge difference. Also he was an adult…like older than 17.
I wish, more than anything, for Bryce Harper to pimp a massive homer off this tool and then come out as gay.
Remember, kids; baseball absolutely doesn’t have a homophobia problem!
No, siree!
Of course, delicate honkeys are entitled to their wrong and bad opinion.
Imagine being a white person who feels ‘oppressed’.
I, personally, cannot.
Remember, kids; down votes are Not An ArgumentTM!
You are just being a tool. This type of discourse would be well received at Hardball Times though!
*extremely Drumpf voice* Wrong.
I’ve never read the Hardball Times. Are the comments there populated by more or fewer extremely delicate honkeys?
You’re talking to yourself because everyone recognizes you are a troll posing a strawman hoping to antagonize responses. I see why the idea of assigning those labels to players and then having them interact via baseball’s unwritten rules would appeal to you, who wants to win the internet. But entertaining you is boring and wasteful, so you’ll only get downvotes from anyone that values their own time.
If you’re going to reply, you could at least make the effort to have a point.
RIP Grimes.
” I see why the idea of assigning those labels to players and then having them interact via baseball’s unwritten rules would appeal to you, who wants to win the internet.”
Is this even a sentence?
Yes, it is.
Given your diatribe today it should surprise no one that you are unable to make that determination for yourself.
Meaning… ?
Perhaps it should have been “Whom wants to win the internet,” I DUNNO MANG
“troll” nah
“strawman” nope
“assigning those labels to players” wtf
“wants to win the internet” rofl
“down votes” there, there, delicate honkey.
I’m just trying to help man.
You clearly want to engage with people on the internet and have chosen this site, ostensibly because you’d like to talk about baseball. But the way you’re going about it is exhausting, and most people who go on the internet to engage want to enjoy it… so you end up being ignored. Then you double and triple down on your conduct, which perhaps you find hilarious in a smug, empty way… but it just leaves you even more isolated than before.
Commenting on the web is a competition in the same way “Whose Line” is a competition- nobody wins anything, but the discussion can be entertaining and enriching if that is your goal instead! Stop trying to wage a war here and it will probably be a much more fulfilling EXPERIENCE for you.
🙂
Wrong again, dipshit.
Welp! I did my best.
I wish you the best of luck in your endeavors, but will have to join the throngs in ignoring your uh… insight.
CHEERS TO YOU, HAPPY & CONTENT VOODOO MAN
Simmer down, spastic honkey
That this comment received the most down votes is a telling indictment on the current state of Fangraphs’ homophobic readership.
This irritates me on so many levels. So a 17 year old tweets insensitive remarks. So what? He’s not 17 anymore and he values his job so he longer tweets his own beliefs, and instead is committed to upholding MLBs corporate “values”. Isn’t this how the system is supposed to work?
Ok, unless the point of this article is , “hey sometimes 17 year olds say horrible things, so let’s get really mad at them!!!”… I don’t see an issue here. He got hired into a corporate environment and the tweets stopped.
But hey, let’s get mad!!! Yay, I found his comments upsetting too! But now what? I can only expend so much energy for righteous indignation in one day. It can get emotionally draining.
You know that the problem isn’t the tweets, right? It’s that the tweets indicate this is a person who believes abhorrent things.
I’m sorry if you think people being annoyed at a white supremacist being allowed to get away with saying it in public, because he’s good at his job, is “righteous indignation”.
A white supremest should be able to live a respectable life in America, and should be free to share their beliefs…normal restrictions towards violence, work behavior, and social norms apply.
He;s not a “white supremacist” any more than you are a “writer”, right now.
Also you can’t righteous indignate yourself so much that it is no longer righteous indignation lol. You are demonstrating righteous indignation, of course.
Copypasta:
Nah, you’re missing the point. When you’re a celebrity or public figure, part of what you bring to the table is your public image. People don’t pay LeBron James gobs of money to advertise shoes because he’s great at communicating the virtues of shoes, it’s because it’s good for business to be associated with the image he projects.
When you’re no longer holding up your end of the image bargain employers and sponsors no longer want to be associated with you because it costs them money. (See: Deen, Paula or Gunn, James) It’s not about punishing them.
On a slightly unrelated note:
If rap lyrics, left without citation, are this offensive, should they even be published? It’s disgusting that songs with lyrics like these are out there, let alone popular, especially amongst age groups who are easily influenced, still developing and are discovering how they are as people (teens).
Edit: I don’t think people get my comment. The point is that if lyrics out of context are this offensive, they shouldn’t be published in the first place, not that some crazy reality-tv parents should control their kids’ music because ‘a song has a bad word in it’…
Representation =/= endorsement
My friend, does Tipper Gore ever have the organization for you!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parents_Music_Resource_Center
(just remembered “Darling Nikki” was on their hit list. Prince ruled)
What made at least some of the rap lyrics offensive when Hader tweeted them is that they used a term which, when used by white people, is extraordinarily derogatory to black people. That same terms is not as extraordinarily derogatory to black people when used by black people themselves, because the black people who use them can reasonably be supposed not to hate black people in general (this is why Clayton Bigsby is not a real documentary). Which is not something that can reasonably be supposed of white people who use that term, especially when those white people are also saying “kkk” and “white power lol.”
” The point is that if lyrics out of context are this offensive, they shouldn’t be published in the first place”
Again, representation =/= endorsement.
Look at all the down votes from people too lazy to use a dictionary!
“KING KONG AIN’T GOT SHIT ON ME!”
hahaha
The heavy insinuation that his teammates only accept his apology because he’s an elite reliever is unfortunate to read. Media wants the MLB players to stand up for their game, and yet in this case the player’s acceptance of Hader gets completely ignored because its not what baseball media believes is moral.
Seen a ton of this. Some of the most racist statements have been white people saying we “black teammates opinions” as it relates to Hader are propaganda and that they cant think for themselves.
Those thoughts have been pushed by people who podcast here at The Hardball Times
THT is a toxic environment. A shame what it turned into.
Yep. I cancelled my membership here since I dont want a penny of mine funneled to Mary Craig or Jen Ramos.
That couldn’t possibly be because you hate women?
What’s the situation at THT? I don’t much about it aside from the columns posted to the main page here on FG.
they write about the sexist and racist history of baseball and try to bring in opinions from people who arent white cis men. it’s a very fucked up thing.
Further, if Hader does have some perspectives that are bad, you don’t get him good by beating up on him or enforcing rules against him. Unfortunately, to fix the problem, you have to make him feel closer to his (diverse) teammates and community. But you can’t angry him out of his feelings. And yes, this process is unfair to the people he is implicitly threatening or insulting.
When it comes issues of the criminal justice system, a lot of progressively minded people argue that a 17 year old brain is not fully mature and that that there is a lot of scientific evidence to support this. It’s great that these progressively minded people are consistent with their….oh wait, nevermind.
Fortunately, this isn’t a criminal justice issue.
In what realm or fucking state of existence is this comment disagreeable?
I think they are just assuming it must suck lol
This isn’t a criminal justice issue, but the overarching concept of the teenage mind/impulse control not being fully developed at age 17 is eminently relevant to both situations.
Making it into strictly a criminal justice issue sidesteps having to confront that disconnect in logic.
Indeed, noted uber-lib Anthony Kennedy wrote, in Roper v. Simmons, finding that the death penalty for juveniles under the age of 18 is unconstitutional (in 2005, FFS!):
“Once the diminished culpability of juveniles is recognized, it is evident that the penological justifications for the death penalty apply to them with lesser force than to adults.”
Which he then cited in Graham v. Florida, finding that life sentences without parole for juveniles are also unconstitutional:
“Juvenile offenders cannot with reliability be classified among the worst offenders.” Id., at 569. A juvenile is not absolved of responsibility for his actions, but his transgression “is not as morally reprehensible as that of an adult.”
Notably, other ultra-lib, activist Justice Roberts concurred in Graham.
Of course, Graham also explicitly held that juveniles could be sentenced to life in prison as long as there was a non-guaranteed possibility of parole. Josh Hader is not facing the death penalty or life without parole.
Is the argument here that racism is cured with age?
No, the argument is that he was dumb when he was 17, and has lived several years since in a manner that appears to demonstrate that he learned and matured and grew along the way, because there is zero record of anything remotely close to this since that time.
Josh Hader should kneel during the national anthem
if my son did that, i’d be so disappointed in myself and him.
Just one person’s opinion:
He said bad things, very bad things, and 17 year olds get tried as adults all the time. I’m not buying the “just a kid” argument at all.
He apologized, and may have changed, we don’t know.
He should not be punished by MLB for saying bad things as a 17 yo.
No one should give this kind of behavior a standing ovation. I don’t get it.
I’m guessing the standing ovation was a show of support for a guy who has owned up to some bad conduct from several years ago, who has taken responsibility for his stupidity, and appears to have learned from it and made needed changes along the way.
He’s also an All-Star in his home-town, and just returned from the All-Star game. These people only know him as an athlete, and as a fan. There is also such a thing as loyalty.
Was shocked at how fair this article was.
Was not shocked that the crazy people of baseball twitter have descended on Jon Heyman trying to get him fired including people who podcast here at the Harball Times about this.
The several years that have ensued since Hader made a string of stupid comments should really serve as proof of his growth as a person. His teammates really appear to have his back, and I have not read or heard anything from his time in the minors or majors that would suggest he still feels this way.
But, MLB has to at least be “seen” to be doing something, so here we go. It’s nothing more than a CYA publicity stunt that serves no other purpose than appeasing a segment of our society.
Orwell was right.
The “CYA publicity stunt” is announcing you won’t discipline the guy but you’re directing him to a private round of sensitivity training? That seems far removed from what one would consider a publicity stunt. I can think of a whole lot more MLB could do it if it wanted to make this into a publicity stunt to “appease a segment,” if they wanted to.
Seems like their rationale is more like they want to be on record as disapproving of racism and homophobia, but also not wanting to do too much that they would end up in a battle with the union.
Hader has spent several years in the minors and majors without so much as a hint of this around him. He’s being retroactively punished for behavior that has nothing to do with his present-day conduct.
That is very much a publicity stunt, because there is nothing in the present that indicates he needs to clean up his act in this area. It is nothing more than political correctness continuing to run amok.
I’m not sure that there being “no hint of this around him” as far as we know proves anything. Was there any hint of anything around Steve Clevenger before he started tweeting that black protestors should be locked behind bars like animals?
The tweets became public news not by virtue of MLB action. It’s not like MLB went digging through his twitter history just for fun and decided to leak his tweets in the middle of the all star game just so they could discipline him (that would very much be a weird as hell publicity stunt!). They were just reacting to something that became public.
And come on with the whole “political correctness run amok” thing. If the worst thing that happens to you because you tweeted about the KKK, white power, and how you hate gay people is that you are subject to criticism and directed to a sensitivity course…no one is running amok on you.
I totally understand they were simply “reacting”, but the thing to which they were reacting happened several years ago and, as far as anyone can tell, has exactly nothing to do with the present-day version of Josh Hader.
Is there anything of which you are aware from his time in pro ball that would lead you to believe he has anything on which to work in this area?
If not, what problem are they trying to solve, other than a public relations one?
They certainly are not looking to improve Josh Hader as a person here, because by all indications that is simply not needed.
Well, I certainly won’t argue that MLB’s goal was to put themselves on record as doing something (probably the bare-ass minimum) as opposed to doing it out of some altruistic goal of making Hader a better person.
Punishment and remediation should always have as their primary goal the improvement of the person being dealt with.
Disagree. Sometimes punishment is dealt out to make a wronged party whole. If you hit my car, part of your punishment is paying for those damages. This isn’t meant to make you a better person, it’s meant to undo the damage you did.
Not specifically relevant here, but the idea that “make the offender a better person” isn’t always the primary goal needed to be addressed. If someone wanted to slippery slope that concept and say that in saying these things, Hader has wronged a section MLB fans with his statements (or that the MLB has wronged this set of fans by allowing Hader to be a part of the league) their argument would be in this vein.
Also, how would going to sensitivity training NOT be overtly in the “make Hader a better person” camp? There’s plenty of companies that have required training on these types of topics even if the employee in question never said a single slur in their life.
How does Hader make the wronged party whole in this type of situation?
I don’t see any way for that because he did no material damage of the type you described with the car.
It is for that reason that I label this a PR stunt by MLB. There’s nothing to be gained, when you get down to it.
If the punishment for having posted a bunch of racist/homophobic garbage 7 years ago is “keep making $500+K, and also attended a sensitivity training course” I will gladly welcome our terrible orwellian nightmare.
I don’t have an opinion on the degree or authenticity of Hader’s remorse, and we have only the crudest instruments–basically what we can surmise from an ad hoc apology/defense in the immediate aftermath and subsequent canned statements & indirect accounts–to make such a judgement. I’m also not so naive as to think that’s a trivial question. And I certainly believe a public mea culpa is the minimum he owes.
That said, I feel ambivalent about the call for something “more authentic” in the first place–for example, something like what a previous commenter has called “[his] journey from racism to non-racism.” It’s not that it wouldn’t be appropriate and restorative; if I were his friend/coworker, especially his black, gay, or female friend/coworker, I would probably demand just that from him before we could move on.
But what works for interpersonal relationships is not always generalizable to the public sphere. Public demonstrations of “authentic” remorse–or of anything comparably interior and personal–are by their nature performative. And as Sheryl notes, public criteria for evaluating them are hopelessly circumstantial. I suppose I just don’t trust the public (myself obviously included) to determine who is really sorry and who is just going through the motions. If that means I have to accept a world in which I’m not really able to express an opinion on Josh Hader’s moral character, so be it. For me, it is enough that he submits to the public discipline of an apology in the first place. We’ve seen what happens when public figures in much more influential roles don’t do that much.
For what its worth, If I remember correctly, his line in the interview after the ASG was “probably some rap lyrics or something”. While he probably did see the actual tweets that people were reacting to, he may not have seen all of them, and it is 100% true that at least a few of them were, in fact, rap lyrics. Thus making the statement that he mislead a bit of a stretch.
Also, some referring to him as a “child” when he made the tweets is kinda crazy – he was most certainly not a child. But, that said – there is something about the areas that people may or may not grow up in and the things that they may or may not experience. There’s a lot of context one obtains when leaving the area they grew up in and experiencing the world outside of their bubbles. As a 17 year old, one can fully understand that the thing they’re saying is bad while also not fully grasping the extent to which they’re bad.
This is not a defense of Hader, but merely just an attempt to maybe understand.
With regard to the area he grew up in, it is not like it’s someplace where there are no African Americans, gays, or other minorities. It’s less than 20 miles from Baltimore, and only about 30 miles from DC. The demographics of his high school are about 35% non-white. There can be little doubt that he played with, and competed against, many African-American ballplayers and those from other minority groups. And he probably had a number of gay classmates. So I don’t think we can excuse him for a lack of exposure or experience with individuals in these groups. They were just senseless and hurtful comments, and even as a 17-year old, he should have known better. I just hope he knows better now.
As mentioned, I’m not defending him. Nor am I asserting that he didn’t grow up around black people – just postulating that it’s a possibility.
We as a nation have a larger issue with that specific word, where we allow it to be used in public forums, and judge a person’s right to use it based on their skin color. If it were true that he didn’t have any black friends (which, I don’t know if he did, and am not asserting that he didn’t…just laying out a scenario), it can also be true that he had a very immature understanding of the extent to which people find that word offensive in a world where he hears it all the time. He might not have a human connection to the actual feelings of someone who is hurt by the term.
While this situation is relatively specific to only one of the topics his tweets focused on, it can be somewhat translated to the other.
I agree that some of them were rap lyrics and I wouldn’t expect him to know that some weren’t. It was 7 years ago, after all.
However, he now needs to go back and reread every single one of them and make a new apology for the ones that really aren’t rap lyrics and are really in support of or at least condoning, violent ideologies.
I suppose the course of action depends on what your goal is. Do you want a pound of flesh and run people through ineffective “sensitivity training” for shit they said in high school, or do you want people to be allowed to learn from mistakes and improve as individuals? The former does nothing to help with the latter. He said it was wrong, his beliefs have changed since then, and he appears to have the support of his teammates. That is the ideal outcome, IMO.
Of course there will be some people that will be happy with nothing less than that pound of flesh, and they’ll always find petty things like, “he blamed rap lyrics and didn’t take responsibility” to complain about. But those people will never be satisfied with any reasonable solution. To them, the issue is about themselves, as opposed to improving outcomes for the actual people involved/affected.
False dichotomy.
You present one tangible option and one meaningless Biblical metaphor.
“Pound of flesh” is a Shakespearan reference, not a Biblical metaphor, btw.
Merchant of Venice. And a super duper anti-semitic play and reference that plays up the idea of Jews as greedy and grasping.
So to Skin Blues: don’t use a super offensive reference when trying to explain away a super offensive moment by Josh Hader.
Your point?
Well stated.
Anyone who roots for the Brewers is involved. (Raising hand.) The present outcome (embarrassment at Hader’s tweets and the subsequent standing ovation) is not an ideal outcome for those of us who’d like a bit more reassurance that Hader is actually using this as a catalyst to improve — and that’s demonstrated most effectively by him using his adult insights to improve teens who are what he was once. This isn’t a private matter because baseball isn’t a private matter — it’s a social organism, a covenant between team and fans. It amazes me how many people love the social bonds between players and fans when teams are chasing pennants and the stands are full, but immediately revert to touting players as private citizens at moments like this.
I also want people to stop doing this crap in the future. Hader getting a slap on the wrist and then getting cheered by his hometown fans definitely doesn’t help make that happen.
I find this to be very interesting: “his “misattribution” of “white power” and “KKK” to rap lyrics are punishable both by the Commissioner under the CBA and by the Brewers under the model contract.” My comprehension could be suffering on a Monday afternoon, but it sounds like the suggestion in this article is there could be more grounds to discipline him based on his recent “apology” than what he actually said? Am I reading this right? Or maybe someone can share their perception/shed some light on this for me?
That’s how I read it, as well.
Yeah, the point that I’m reading is that it’s possible MLB could not punish him for something that happened before he was part of MLB (or its minor league system). However, he could be punished for ostensibly lying about the source of tweet language because it happened during his time with the Brewers.
You are likely right, I just never previously considered a player being punished for containing incorrect, incomplete or purposely misleading information in an apology about something that happened before they were even drafted by a major league team. Again, not over the remarks themselves, but a possible excuse contained within an apology. Not saying it would be right or wrong, just fascinated it could be a thing at all. That would set a strong precedent for sure.
I’ve read the tweets, I’ve read the posts above. Couldn’t see an appropriate place to put this ….
A good post and a very lawyerly argument, as always. But in this case I think the lawyerly argument necessarily leaves out an important distinction:
It’s not “could MLB discipline Hader for actions of seven years ago,” but “should MLB discipline Hader for actions of seven years ago.”
Of course they can. They are a major corporation with the funds to “protect their public image.” They can, they have, and there you are.
But should they? A more difficult question. As you and many others have pointed out, this is what silly little children with access to a Twitter account do these days. You could probably gather up a couple of hundred thousand idiot white kids who have tweeted similarly, and who on earth is going to “discipline” them?
I’m for the Lorenzo Cain approach. I’m for the David Price approach. (And David is no knock-over on this stuff.) I’m for whatever the Brewers and the MLB concoct to replace the massive gaps in his sensitivity.
But to me the real question is, why do so many teenage American kids come out with this crap?
You can stand the occasional silly little white kid up against the wall of public scrutiny, but wouldn’t it be more useful to deal with the causes, not the outcomes?
A lot of white people, especially men (and boys apparently) are having an existential crisis over the perceived loss (or at least lessening) of their privilege. The idea that white people are now only getting a 10-yard head start instead of a 20-yard head start really pisses a lot of white people off.
And I say this as a white male.
First, congratulations to Sheryl on focusing on the weakness of Hader’s excuses. That weakness is what troubles me — a Brewers fan since their birth in 1970 — about the quick move by just about everyone in Milwaukee to absolve and move on. Because Hader is good for business, we’re rushing to closure way too fast.
The standing ovation in Milwaukee was embarrassing, but let’s just say I’m not surprised. Moving forward, the Brewers are playing a four-game series this weekend in San Francisco. Hader is going to get absolutely roasted there, and he’ll be booed every time he’s handed the ball on the road for at least the next year. What MLB should be doing is mandating that Hader speak to students like his 17-year-old self in every city the Brewers play in this year, telling them why what he did was stupid and what he’s learned in the seven years since that’s made him different. Yeah, that would be “performative” — but it would also be a lot closer to an “authentic” gesture of contrition than what’s happened to date. He would pay a real price, and possibly do real good. And those of us who root for the Brewers and are repulsed by his statements — or anyone who’s enjoyed his pitching this year and feels the same — might have a better way back to cheering for him again. To date, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of understanding in baseball that fans and teams have a covenant, not a contract — and that requires more than blaming music or hiring interns to scrub past social media selves.
This is the best response I’ve read. Anyway, if there was genuinely no enmity behind the comments and it was just a stupid teenager trying to be “edgy,” that might be even more of a reason to do outreach, to show that there are repercussions for what you say no matter how innocuous you think the platform might be.
Perhaps a website devoted to analytics should examine should cite analytics drawn from the vast wealth of data from the juvenile justice system.
The First Amendment probably shields Josh Hader’s offensive tweets from criminal (or delinquent) prosecution but the characteristics displayed in the tweets might be predictive of future conduct … or not.
As another poster noted, the evolving research on adolescent development suggests that juveniles should be treated differently than their adult counterparts. The research should shed light on an offensive juvenile tweeter as well as an adjudicated juvenile sex offender such as Oregon State pitcher Luke Heimlich. Analytics could show the relative risks posed by each offender.
Society will never treat offensive tweeting and child molestation in the same manner but the risks to the community might not be terribly different.
This year at Spring Training I witnessed the personable Hader up close signing autographs for Milwaukee fans, who fawned over the goofball. We can only hope that Hader can turn the offensive revelations into something positive through restorative measures.
“Society will never treat offensive tweeting and child molestation in the same manner but the risks to the community might not be terribly different.”
Are you serious?
I am going to try to give this passage as charitable an interpretation as possible, because the rest of your comment seems pretty well thought out, but…
“Society will never treat offensive tweeting and child molestation in the same manner but the risks to the community might not be terribly different.”
Huh? Are you talking about straight numerical recidivism risk percentage? That, I could find plausible, but there’s no way those two things could be treated in any way as similar transgressions by a sane society. I assume that (recidivism risk) is what you were talking about?
And I thought the MLB trade rumors comment section is toxic. I think he shouldn’t have been insulted at the all star game like that. But, what Hader said was not ok. We have to move on and let this situation disappear. Racism however, must be fought against as the only reason to hate someone is if they are a murderer or serial rapist. Not based on trivial DNA matters/ personal preferences.
We all have said something similar or worse when we were teenagers. Many teenagers do so many things just to fit in or to be cool. Hader is not a racist. Have seen him mingling with bunch black and latino kids in charity events and he was super nice and friendly. Media is terrible.
As weird as it may sound, I couldn’t care less about Josh Hader the individual.
If he is not a racist, good for him.
If he is a 24 year old racist, no amount of sensitivity training or suspension is likely to change that, especially considering he is a rising star about to make millions soon.
What I am interested in instead is the people’s, especially the young kids’ takeaway from all this.
I see people saying ‘you shouldn’t post everything on the social media’ and ‘you should erase your old posts once you get a job’.
These are all valid things to learn but should not be the main lesson.
It should be simply ‘don’t be a bigot.’
Everybody knows it but they don’t necessarily know it know it.
And I think these kinds of incidents are the best learning opportunities for the kids.
The biggest problem isn’t the tweets, it’s the disingenuous apology.
So some of the tweets actually are rap lyrics:
“I don’t give a damn, I’m a triply [sic] n—–” (Juicy J)
But others, are obviously not:
“white power” and “KKK” and “I hate gays”
If all that had happened was he posted some offensive rap lyrics, his apology would be fine. But he never addressed his tweets that are very clearly beyond just offensive into the realm of actually supporting pro-violence ideologies.
Now that doesn’t mean he supports violence or that he even actually supports those ideologies (though why tweet them if you aren’t at least tacitly in support?).
But his “I was young and immature” doesn’t really cover the whole second batch of truly reprehensible tweets.
It’s entirely possible that in the heat of the moment, he didn’t realize/remember about the second type of tweets. I wouldn’t necessarily expect him to. But it’s not on him to come out and say “I realize that some of the tweets were really horrible and beyond just stupid. Those are the kinds of statements that racists and fascists use to perpetrate real violence. I can’t believe I ever thought that was cool or edgy. It was beyond dumb, and I am sorry for seeming to condone such awful ideas and beliefs.”
I’m a little disturbed at how quickly people on here are willing to forgive him. Not saying he needs to face serious punishment or anything but we certainly don’t need to give him a free pass when it’s obvious that racism is still a problem in our society.
Political correctness is a much bigger problem in our society than racism is these days.
He was only 17!
First a well written thought provoking article.
I had hoped all commentators respected that the laws for prosecuting thought crimes by minors, had some rationality in evaluating each case. I had also thought MLB would be lauded for exercising reasonable judgement for a juvenile set of thoughts. Not actions, thoughts. But I was wrong.
BTW, according to USA Today, Dustin Pedroia’s walk-up song at some point was “Real (expletive) G’s”. Again no problem for anyone at any time, an adult choosing his walk-up song. Or Carlos Correa and Travis Shaw using “Lemon” as a walk-up song. Again, no problem for adults choosing a walk-up song. No negative response from MLB about words or content. Interesting standards for individuals, team and MLB.
This was all much ado about nothing. Were none of you ever 17? Did none of you ever have 17 year old friends who said dumb and offensive things? I don’t care what [insert name of person here] thought, said, or wrote when they legally were a juvenile, and neither should you. There’s a reason why records of juvenile crimes are almost always sealed: they weren’t adults. The court system has made it crystal clear that children 17 years old or younger are automatically considered to have diminished mental capacity, because they are still children. Get off of this guy’s back; he apologized, when he really should have just blown it all off and explained that he was still a kid then, didn’t know any better, and everybody should just get over it.
I just have to say that I agree with those who say we don’t know Hader personally, so therefore we can’t assume he’s racist. His teammates vouched for him and Lorenzo Cain was the most transparent about that. A lot changes between 17-24 years of age. People need to realize that this is a pretty important transistional period for a young adult in finding out who they are personally and maturing . It’s is very possible he isn’t racist despite past comments. Also brewers fans giving a standing ovation is a way to show support for a pitcher that they know pitches his tail off everyday and accepting his apology not supporting his racist tweets. I say we let him learn from his experience and keep a close on this situation going forward
He was a kid who said stupid things many years ago. It is a move on and let it go situation. While I don’t think he needed a standing ovation, I’m choosing to believe that was the fans way of saying they are doing just that and support him for who he is Now.