Going up against the best hitters in the American League, Brewers pitcher Josh Hader had to allow for the possibility that he could have a bad night at the All-Star Game. However, it’s doubtful he anticipated that his rough night on the mound would pale in comparison to his rough night in the media.
In what has become a disturbing and frequent trend, someone dug up racist and homophobic adolescent tweets from Hader, and published them during the biggest moment of his career.
While Hader was getting crushed on the field — giving up four hits and yielding a run while recording only one out — offensive tweets that Hader wrote as far back as seven years ago, began surfacing on the internet.
Needless to say, the tweets did not paint Hader in the best light:
RIP to Josh Hader’s career (a thread). pic.twitter.com/hJmD83DcWV
— Kevin Jenkins (@kjen1327) July 18, 2018
— Kevin Jenkins (@kjen1327) July 18, 2018
— Kevin Jenkins (@kjen1327) July 18, 2018
https://twitter.com/Miss_Met/status/1019430385288187905?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1019430385288187905&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthebiglead.com%2F2018%2F07%2F18%2Fjosh-hader-twitter-racist-homophobic%2F
https://twitter.com/SydneySmithh123/status/1019430744446373889?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1019430744446373889&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthebiglead.com%2F2018%2F07%2F18%2Fjosh-hader-twitter-racist-homophobic%2F
As a result of these tweets — on a night when Hader’s family should have been able to proudly support the Milwaukee left-hander — his family felt the need to wear generic jerseys to avoid potential harassment:
Some members of Josh Hader’s family, wearing his All-Star replica jersey, have taken them off and been given generic jerseys without his name on the back.
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 18, 2018
Hader apologized for the tweets after the game:
Josh Hader: “I was young, immature and stupid.”
— Jeff Passan (@JeffPassan) July 18, 2018
A similar social media smear took place on the night of the NCAA championship game. During the game, someone searched through the Twitter history of Villanova guard Donte DiVincenzo and published adolescent tweets containing racial slurs. Like Hader, in some of those instances DiVincenzo was quoting rap lyrics, but nonetheless was taken to task and made to apologize.
The trend of Twitter-Swatting athletes with dumb things they said as 16-year-olds, will likely lead more and more athletes to use locked accounts. Thus preventing trolls from dredging up bad, but ultimately irrelevant statements from the past.
However, the trend poses an ethical problem for the media.
While nothing other than locked accounts can prevent trolls from finding adolescent racist tweets. There’s no rule saying the media has to report them and demand apologies from players who are now, in most cases, well into their twenties.
After all, if MSNBC’s Joy Reid can have her bigotry put on display for all to see and not only not get fired, but actually co-host town halls on bigotry, what possible leg does the media have to stand on when it comes to holding an athlete accountable for the dumb things he said when he was 16?
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
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