Bob Collins
I had my fill of entertainment before the All-Star Game ended last night (nothing can beat a mic’d-up Frankie Lindor) and went to bed, so I missed the number one story coming out of it: one of the players has been exposed as a racist and homophobe.
Also, Twitter is quite often a more influential medium than television.
Both of those are bad for Milwaukee Brewers pitcher Josh Hader who gave up a go-ahead home run during his All-Star Game appearance, and that wasn’t even the worst part of his night.
The circulation of this old tweet of his was.
And this one:
What was impressive was not only how quickly the tweets raced around the internet, but how quickly they raced around the stadium where the game was being played.
dawg they are 100000% reading those tweets by josh hader right now lmfaooooo pic.twitter.com/08LTJWjMeA
— paco 🇺🇸 (@AllaireMatt) July 18, 2018
By the end of the game, the Brewers’ pitcher had made his Twitter account private and was ready to address how they were made in the first place.
He was just 17.
Josh Hader addresses the tweets that surfaced during the game pic.twitter.com/Zzh6uS2frH
— Ryan Fagan (@ryanfagan) July 18, 2018
That explanation later fell flat when a 2016 tweet criticizing protests about the Trayvon Martin killing surfaced.
So today, Major League Baseball sent him to diversity training.
Major League Baseball issues statement requiring #Brewers Josh Hader to enroll in diversity and inclusion initiatives. He will not be suspended pic.twitter.com/wDpvfkDzlA
— Bob Nightengale (@BNightengale) July 18, 2018
“Those of us that have come to know Josh do not believe that these posts are representative of his beliefs. He has been a good teammate and contributor to the team in every way,” the Brewers general manager said in a statement Wednesday.
Presumably, other baseball players are spending their All-Star break deleting old tweets.
