Apologies for more Reddit-tier baseball ragebait, but I must report (and vent) from my travels among the NPC.
I hope this local archive actually displays. I'm away and having to use Tor to circumvent firewalls.
First off, the broadcast caught Ketel Marte of the DBacks last night sobbing between innings and needing to be consoled by his manager Torey Lovullo and his teammates.
It kicked up a ton of Reddit frenzy because allegedly a fan heckled something about Marte's dead mother who died in a car accident
in 2017. No sources seem to actually be able to attribute exactly what was said (and soyboy reporters won't repeat the actual quote because of trigger warnings and fear of copycats). The heckler, from South Chicago where the DBacks were playing the White Sox, was supposedly ejected.
Now Reddit is setting up charitable fundraising campaigns to honor Marte's dead mama. Again, who has been dead for 8 years. And no one gave a shit about until he cried on TV.
Lots of calls for phonebooking of the Chicago heckler as well.
------------
In other baseball Reddit travels, Noah Syndergaard has returned from the shadow realm to sign a minor league deal with the White Sox.
Thor, now 32, and out of baseball for 2 years or so. He apparently is also hated by Reddit.
His crimes
- losing velo and now throwing straight gas at 92-93 instead of 97
- being "uncoachable" once he lost velo with the Dodgers
- preferring hypnosis and other wacky New Age pitching/health philosophy instead of moden MLB high performance stuff and allopathic medicine
- posting a picture on social media one time of a druggie shitting in SF after a visiting win, essentially saying "We got the win, let's get out of here". This makes him an ableist, capitalist pig mocking human misery or something.
-------------
From the Thor discussion, I learned Reddit also hates 1B/DH Rowdy Tellez, recently let go by the Mariners.DH
Tellez was temporarily a Reddit hero last year when the cheap Pirates FO released him days before he was about to reach a PA incentive bonus in his contract when Pittsburgh was eliminated and playing out the dog days of September.
Apparently that's all forgotten now because Tellez, like Thor, is similarly person non grata for...tweeting out once that San Francisco is a shithole.
Also Redditors were sharing a whole bunch of hearsay stories that Rowdy is classist: fun in the clubhouse with fellow players but grumpy with clubhouse staff and plebs.
Maybe all of r/baseball simply lives in the Bay Area?
------------
Finally, former Royals All-Star 2B Whit Merrifield announced his retirement yesterday at 36 after playing his last game with the Braves last September.
A seemingly-not-insignificant portion of the KC fanbase hates Whit because.....he initially didn't get the COVID vaccine during the 2021, 2022 seasons 3-4 years ago.
Merrifield was outed during a road trip to Toronto when 10 Royals had to stay home.
Whit was dealt to Toronto at the deadline in
2021, 2022, initially creating confusion how he would report. However, Merrifield acquiesced essentially immediately, getting the first dose "for a contender" and joining the Blue Jays for the rest of the year.
Blue Jays fans, who seethed and hated every opposing unjabbed player who was outed with every Toronto roadtrip at the time, instantly memoryholed their hate for Merrifield as soon as he bent the knee, got the jab and headed north.
Which creates an interesting dichotomy where certain old KC fans hate Merrifield for being unjabbed for a few months during COVID despite his awesome track record. Where Toronto fans with the memories of goldfish instantly forget he was an unclean conspiracy theorist before he became a Jay because the belated jab absolved his sins. So the Jays fans are happier with Merrifield & his retirement despite him mostly being dogshit after the trade.
