Let's Kick Negativity Out Of Sports Posts
ALSO: TOP TRADER ALEX ANTHOPOULOS DESERVES NL EXECUTIVE OF THE YEAR
IBWAA members love to write about baseball. So much so, we've decided to create our own newsletter about it! Subscribe to Here's the Pitch to expand your love of baseball, discover new voices, and support independent writing. Original content six days a week, straight to your inbox and straight from the hearts of baseball fans.
Pregame Pepper
Did You Know?
The 2021 New York Mets were up by four games on August 1, down by 8 1/2 on August 28, and down by 3 1/2 on September 5 . . .
Outgoing Hall of Fame president Jeff Idelson was a hot dog vendor at Fenway Park as a high school student . . .
In a non-pandemic year, attendance at the Hall of Fame is about 300,000 but fell to 51,000 in 2020 . . .
The only father-and-son pitching tandem to face both Hank Aaron and Barry Bonds when they had 755 home runs were Mike Bacsik and his son of the same name . . .
When Phil Niekro was with the 1986 Cleveland Indians, knuckleballer Tom Candiotti tried to talk shop with him. “It was like talking to Thomas Edison about light bulbs,” he said.
Leading Off
Negativity Kills Sports (Baseball Too)
By K.P. Wee
As fellow IBWAA member Jason Takefman (a former co-host of the weekly “Baseball Writers: The IBWAA Podcast”) would say, “It’s great to see the passion of sports fans for so many different teams. It’s great for the game.”
That part is definitely true.
But I would say when that passion turns into constant negativity and name calling, for me everything is ruined. Why can’t fans agree to disagree in a civil manner?
Obviously, such a problem has existed throughout the beginning of mankind. It just seems worse in the world of social media that we live in today.
To be clear, I don’t mean having pessimism when it comes to your own team. I get it if you’ve been burned too many times by your home team that you don’t trust the players to get the job done when the game’s on the line.
What I’m talking about specifically is the use of insults to attack others.
It pains me to see posts appear on my Twitter feed every time fans attack baseball writers simply for not voting in their favorite players into Cooperstown. Why do people need to resort to childish name calling just because a writer didn’t check off the name Larry Walker, for example, on his ballot? Just because someone else doesn’t think Walker is a Hall of Famer doesn’t make him or her a lesser person than you. We’re all entitled to our opinions. (And why do we need to know who voted for whom in the first place? But that’s another discussion for another time.)
And it’s not on fans only. Too many times I’ve read tweets from national baseball writers using the word “idiot” to refer to those who didn’t agree with their opinions or players who did things which they didn’t think was cool. Of course, it’s hard to tell the tone when these are tweets and not an actual discussion. But when it gets to the level of name-calling, you just have to assume the intent was to be mean-spirited. So, what kind of society do we live in where people can’t act in a grown-up manner if they didn’t agree with each other?
Just to give specific examples, earlier this year a prominent national writer used the word “idiotic” to label fans who disagreed with his take on Jacob deGrom having one of the greatest seasons ever (before the Mets’ ace ran into injury woes), and just a few weeks ago another media personality tweeted that the Mets players were “absolute idiots” for giving their fans the thumbs-down. Why are we so mean-spirited with our tone and words?
Just because we’re passionate fans? I’m sorry, but those types of insults just turn me off as a sports fan. Sports should be fun and give inspiration, but when I read these insults—bullying words, essentially—it just loses me.
In my opinion, if a person is being mean-spirited on the keyboard, it’s no different from any other form of bullying. It makes me wonder how many people out there, behind closed doors, behave in just the same way as, say, people such as Jonah Keri, the disgraced sportswriter?
And words can escalate into bigger incidents. We see video footage of fans fighting in the stands at Dodger Stadium. Hey, we get it, your Dodgers won the World Series. But what gives you the right to fight with people who don’t happen to root for your team?
Perhaps worse of all is when fans show cruelty toward their own team. Again, it’s hard to tell tone when these posts are on Facebook or Twitter or whichever social media platform people are using. But don’t sports fans tell themselves that they simply want to see their team win just one title in their lifetimes?
Yet, in the middle of a pandemic, Dodger fans throughout this season have been writing very negative words on social media about the likes of manager Dave Roberts, former MVP Cody Bellinger, closer Kenley Jansen, and others. And this is a team that had just won the World Series and has won each of the last eight NL West titles—and has one of the best records in all of baseball this season! I’m not going to repeat the words that those “fans” use because they are sickening.
But they are along the lines of why does Roberts still have a job, or that fans feel they could manage the team better than this World Series champion skipper. Or that the manager shouldn’t be using analytics or having bullpen games. Or that Jansen should be kicked to the curb because of one bad game here and there. (Last time I checked, Jansen is a human being, not some AI, so of course he’s going to have good games and bad games. He had a bad day—but he’s had way more great days for him to still be employed as a major-league closer.) But hey, if they get their wish, maybe their team should just release the entire roster!
Of course, I’ve not included the bullying words that these “fans” have used in their posts.
I can sort of get it if your team is the Seattle Mariners, a franchise that has never sniffed the World Series. Or the Pittsburgh Pirates, whose last title came in 1979. Or the Milwaukee Brewers. I even get it if your team is the Mets because of the lack of championships since 1986. Okay, I get it if you really, really hate a certain team and you don’t want to see them win. I get it. There are many fans who just despise certain teams for whatever reasons. Yes, regarding that last statement, I’m guilty of that myself.
But if you’re a fan of the Dodgers, Red Sox (2018), Yankees (2009), Cardinals (2011), Cubs (2016), and other teams who have won championships recently, what exactly are you so negative about? Does the world truly need more negativity than we already have? Do we need to really stoop to calling other fans and ballplayers and managers and writers “idiots” and other insults?
Can’t we all just enjoy sports in a world which isn’t normal at the moment? Can’t we be just thankful that we can even get to watch sports during a global pandemic?
Yes, sports is supposed to be an outlet, a release from the stress of our daily lives. But when you (fans and the media) are too negative and use bullying words when discussing your teams, it’s way over the top and you don’t make sports fan anymore. The beauty of sports is that games are not scripted. There are winners and there are losers. If you’re expecting your team to win every single day and be champions every single year, I’m sorry but you’ll be disappointed. If sports make you more stressed out and feel more negative, maybe you ought to do yourself a favor and turn off the TV—and turn off Twitter—and do something else to have that outlet.
For me, the team I rooted for as a kid won the World Series in 2004 — and I experienced the sporting moment that I’d dreamed of since my childhood. That’s what I’d wished for and, really, I couldn’t ask for anything more. I’m going to spend the next couple of hours watching again a game from July 31, 1991, when Jack Clark became Clark Kent for one night and bashed three home runs in a win against Oakland.
Those times were simpler and you couldn’t read what others were writing online.
K.P. Wee is a teacher and sports author from Vancouver, Canada. His books include The 1988 Dodgers: Reliving the Championship Season; The Case for Barry Bonds in the Hall of Fame; and Tom Candiotti: A Life of Knuckleballs.
Cleaning Up
NL Executive Of The Year: a Lock For Alex Anthopoulos
By Dan Schlossberg
Over the next several weeks, baseball pundits will be pondering the possibilities for postseason awards. There will be considerable hemming and hawing over the Most Valuable Players, Cy Young Award winners, Rookies of the Year, Comeback Players of the Year, and Managers of the Year.
With the singular exception of Shohei Ohtani, who is already dusting off shelf space for his American League MVP trophy, only one other award is a hands-down lock.
Alex Anthopoulos of the Atlanta Braves should be a unanimous pick for National League Executive of the Year.
For most of the first four months, his team lost more than it won and was universally discarded in its bid for a fourth straight NL East title.
It had almost as many disasters as the Titanic, losing corner outfielders Marcell Ozuna and Ronald Acuna, Jr., catcher Travis d’Arnaud, and breakout starting pitcher Huascar Ynoa not for weeks but for months. In addition, center-fielders Cristian Pache and Ender Inciarte flamed out early, leaving the vital post to journeyman Guillermo Heredia.
Instead of throwing in the towel, however, Anthopoulos hiked up his pants and patched up the cracks — adding more players and filling his holes better than any of his 29 colleagues.
In the two weeks that followed Acuna’s injury two days before the All-Star break, he added outfielders Adam Duvall, Jorge Soler, Joc Pederson, and Eddie Rosario; veteran catcher Stephen Vogt; and closer Richard Rodriguez, who represented the Pittsburgh Pirates in the Midsummer Classic.
Although Vogt hardly hit his weight, the other five caught fire the minute they got to Atlanta. It was Sherman’s March in reverse — this time, the Atlantas were doing the burning.
No matter where the Braves finish, his handiwork deserves recognition.
Swallowing his pride, he traded for Duvall, the only one of eight arbitration-eligible players he non-tendered last fall. Pederson, Soler, and Rosario all came in fire sales — from the Cubs, Royals, and Indians, respectively. Rosario was even on the IL at the time.
In all those moves, Anthopoulos yielded only one player with future potential: right-handed starting pitcher Bryse Wilson, who had a few bright moments in the Atlanta sunshine. Whatever Wilson does for Pittsburgh, already pales in comparison to what Rodriguez has done since arriving in Dixie.
Chances are that he’ll soon become the club’s closer, supplanting erratic southpaw Will Smith. Rodriguez is also under club control until 2023, a year longer than Smith.
Although the Braves stumbled badly on a road trip that took them through Los Angeles and Denver, the fact remains that they rebounded from a July deficit of 7 1/2 games to a first-place lead of five. It was shrinking again by Labor Day but first place is first place — especially when both rivals are on the schedule for Truist Park games the last week of the season.
Twenty years younger than manager Brian Snitker, a 65-year-old lifer in the Atlanta system, Anthopoulos has autonomy in addition to audacity. His teams in Toronto and Los Angeles have been in the playoffs every year since 2013 and he has no intention of ending that streak now.
We’ll be hearing his name long after this season is history.
HERE’S THE PITCH weekend editor Dan Schlossberg of Fair Lawn, NJ also writes baseball for Latino Sports, forbes.com, Ball Nine, USA TODAY Sports Weekly, Sports Collectors Digest. His e.mail is ballauthor@gmail.com.
Timeless Trivia
Cedric Mullins has joined Reggie Jackson and Don Baylor as the only Orioles to hit 25 homers and steal 25 bases in the same season . . .
Rookie catcher Riley Adams has been red-hot since joining the rebuilding Washington Nationals on August 3 . . .
John Smoltz, the 54-year-old Hall of Famer, has been banned from MLB Network studios because he refuses to comply with a company-wide vaccination mandate . . .
Joel Sherman of The New York Post writes, “Derek Jeter hated the analytics tidal wave as a player, in part because it so denigrated his defense.”
Pitchers Tim Hudson and Mark Buehrle, both 200-game winners, will remain on future Hall of Fame ballots after polling more than 5 per cent in the 2021 balloting.
Know Your Editors
HERE’S THE PITCH is published daily except Sundays and holidays. Brian Harl [bchrom831@gmail.com] handles Monday and Tuesday editions, Elizabeth Muratore [nymfan97@gmail.com] does Wednesday and Thursday, and Dan Schlossberg [ballauthor@gmail.com] edits the weekend editions on Friday and Saturday. Readers are encouraged to contribute comments, articles, and letters to the editor. HTP reserves the right to edit for brevity, clarity, and good taste.