Blood & Guts Dept.
Volha Mazuronak of Belarus ignored a horrendous nose bleed that splattered her face and singlet 30 minutes into the race to win the European Championship women’s marathon in Berlin.
Mazuronak didn’t hit the proverbial runner’s wall; it just looked like it. By Paul Sullivan
In a preview of the second half of the season in July, I asked whether Brewers reliever Josh Hader could restore his reputation, and if not, whether his major league career would suffer.
Hader’s racist and homophobic tweets from his teenage years had been resurrected and posted on the internet the night of the All-Star Game, a story that made national newscasts the next day.
“Everyone will be watching, and for decades social media classes will refer to this incident as a teaching lesson for kids with cell phones,” I wrote.
Surely Hader was an anomaly, I thought. No other player would still have inappropriate tweets available for someone to dig up and post on the internet after hearing his story.
I was wrong, of course, and now the list is up to four after Sean Newcomb, Trea Turner and Michael Kopech were discovered to have used similarly offensive language on Twitter during their teens.
Whether they deleted their tweets or not, someone preserved them via screenshot and chose to reveal them at their convenience.
For Hader, it was during his appearance in the All-Star Game. For Newcomb, it was the same day he flirted with a no-hitter for the Braves. And for Kopech, it was right before he was called up to make his major league debut.
What followed the revelations of the offensive tweets was the same basic script — an apology from the player, an admonishment from management for the tweets and a reassurance from both player and management that those views no longer reflect who that player is as a person.
Hader, Newcomb and Turner have now had a few weeks to move on from their tweet controversies. After facing the music recently and saying all the right things in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times, it’s Kopech’s turn to apologize to his teammates for the distraction and let them know that’s not who he is now or how he feels.
I doubt most of his teammates need an apology. They already know who Kopech is as a person, and maybe some of them are fortunate no one digs up the inappropriate things they’ve said or done in their youth. Hader was strongly defended by his teammates, and I’m sure Kopech will be as well.
But Kopech will hear about it again, as Hader did when he was booed in San Francisco immediately after the All-Star break. (Of course, he also received a big ovation in Miller Park, as Brewers fans showed Hader that they had his back.)
This is not what Kopech envisioned when he worked hard all year in Triple-A to get to the majors. It’s not something the Sox envisioned when they hyped his debut on Twitter and then watched him create a buzz Tuesday night at Sox Park.
It was an electric night, at least for a couple innings, before a rainstorm ended Kopech’s night. Despite the rain, it was the start of a beautiful relationship between Kopech and Sox fans, and a big step in the Sox rebuild.
“I think it was pretty special by the fans here in Chicago to give him that applause and follow him every step of the way,” acting manager Joe McEwing said afterwards. “As he was warming up, very rarely do you see three or four rows deep of people and that’s pretty special and a pretty special feeling. He took it into the game and I thought he pitched very well, under the circumstances of his first outing.”
Afterwards Kopech called it a “dream come true,” and told us he teared up hearing the joyous screams of his mother when he gave her the news of his call-up.
“Just knowing we had all waited on this for so long,” he said. “It was definitely overwhelming. Obviously I’ve wanted to be here for so long, but it was just one of those situations that until I stepped out on that mound it didn’t set in.”
It took only two days before the old tweets became news, putting Kopech on the defensive in his third day in a Sox uniform.
He’s handled it well so far, and Sox general manager Rick Hahn came to Kopech’s defense, saying the tweets “don’t reflect the young man we know.” Kopech seems to have a strong support system of family and friends who will help him get through this incident.
This is a reality show Kopech didn’t bargain for, but it’s here, and now he has to deal with the consequences.
How Kopech recovers from this really is up to him. He has shown remorse, but his actions will speak louder than his words.
In the end it’s just another teaching lesson for a budding major league star, and a lesson for anyone posting inappropriate things on social media.
It’s Kopech’s turn to apologize to his teammates for the distraction and let them know that’s not who he is now or how he feels.