Usually the MLB All-Star Game (AKA Midsummer Classic) and Home Run Derby are joyous events rife with smiles and fun — and for the most part that was true again this year.
Bryce Harper won a mesmerizing derby by putting on a show of power in the final minute — and it was fitting his father threw him BP in his home ball park, since his father was notorious for having a young Bryce swing at thousands of balls a week in their home batting cage.
The game itself was home run after home run, and speculation the entire week leading up to and into the game was where Baltimore shortstop Manny Machado would wind up in a trade. The Brewers put a team-record five players onto the rosters: Lorenzo Cain, Christian Yelich, Jesus Aguilar, Jeremy Jeffress and Josh Hader.
Hader, however, did not have a fun time once the game started. Not only did the typically lights-out lefty give up a 3-run blast that sent the American League onto their way to victory, but Twitter blew up during the game after old tweets from a teenage Hader came to light. Twitter, while a pretty decent source to gather breaking news, is usually a place smitten with either one-liner comedy or cringeworthy hot takes.
Hader’s 7-year-old tweets were of the cringeworthy variety.
Many of Hader’s tweets from 2011 — when he was 17 — were racist, sexist and homophobic. He owned up to them immediately after the game, apologized, and MLB has since put him into sensitivity training.
Hader and the league are saying and doing the right things here. But as fans and the masses, we have to be wary of our outburst toward his actions. Yes, he was 17, which is old enough to know better. But at 17, most of us don’t care. Let’s face it, we all have regrets from when we were teenagers and today a lot of the phrases and words we used wouldn’t fly.
I am lucky Twitter wasn’t around when I was 17, because my takes would have been awful. I am a different person today, at 33, then I was at 17. I was a completely different person by 20, actually. People change, oftentimes for the better. Sometimes they don’t even think about digging through thousands of old internet posts to delete the 5, 10 or 50 bad takes they had. Then they get caught.
Hader’s teammates were quick to support him, with Aguilar giving a strong, positive statement on Hader’s character as a teammate and friend. And that is where we should look at what type of a person he is now — what those closest to him say about him.
As a Brewer fan, I can only hope that his efforts on the mound in the second half of the season aren’t affected by this controversy. As an adult and father of three that knows he is looked up to, I don’t fully forgive him, but I can move on — just as his character qualities seemingly have. He’s opened himself up to the dogs of MLB doing whatever punishment they feel is necessary — which shouldn’t be anything, as he wasn’t a professional player yet when he sent his vile views to the world.
Let this be a lesson to the kids out there; a learning moment for us all. The internet is a scary place. Tread carefully.
— Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Times but doesn’t take back that thing he said when he was 12 about the Monstars from Space Jam. He still feels that way. Adam can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.net.
