When sports media stray from sports, what do they like to report on? Guns were a huge topic on Monday, the day after David Katz is alleged to have shot and killed three people and wounded 11 at a Madden 19 video football tournament in Jacksonville. They criticized Boston Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez for an Instagram post supporting the Second Amendment, gave former NBA player Roy Hibbert an anti-gun forum and called gun supporters "racists."
Hibbert, a two-time NBA all-star center who played for four teams and is an avid video gamer, told TMZ Sports (scroll down for the story) not to blame violent video games for the violence. Guns are the real issue:
"The conversation shouldn't be on video games. ... It should be on the other thing. And you know what the other thing is."
It also appears that in place of covering sports yesterday, the media must have been doing internet searches on "athletes and guns." Earlier this summer, they used old SM posts to figuratively tar and feather baseball and football players for their old and controversial posts. As part of the sports media's ongoing social media witch hunts, they timed the Jacksonville shootings with this Martinez Instagram post from 2013:
To The New York Post, standing up for the Second Amendment makes Martinez a "controversial star" as soon as his old IG post just mysteriously surfaced.
To Alex Raskin of the UK Daily Mail, "Boston Red Sox slugger J.D. Martinez has become the latest Major League star to have his social media use come under scrutiny after an old Instagram post of his featuring Adolf Hitler was unearthed." The revelation of his pro-gun message "is very timely. Martinez grew up in Florida, where several notable shootings have taken place in the last year, including Sunday's massacre at a mall in Jacksonville that left two dead and several more injured."
Raskin also writes that Martinez, who leads the American League with 110 runs-batted-in, "has yet to comment on the post." Apparently if you support the Second Amendment, you owe media bigots an explanation. Ignoring the central fact that Germany rendered its citizenry defenseless through gun control, the UK writer quibbled about when it occurred:
"Scholars have argued that Germany's gun laws were actually stricter under the Weimar Republic, which preceded Hitler's reign.
"As anthropologist Abigail Kohn wrote in her 2004 book, 'Shooters: Myths and Realities of America's Gun Cultures,' the Jews were not well armed before Hitler, so any gun control aimed to removing their weapons does not apply to the modern gun debate in the United States."
Raskin predicted that Martinez will draw less criticism than baseball players who, in past social media, insulted homosexuals and minorities. Nevertheless, he groups Martinez with those people just for supporting the Second Amendment.
Lester Lee, a writer for the blog Dead Seriousness, totally tore into Martinez and insisted all Second Amendment supporters are racists. He wrote that the Red Sox are a team of geeks and it's hard to hate them. But ...
"Enter JD Martinez.
"Gun people are the most fragile humans on Earth. They truly believe that they were born with the right to carry a tool whose sole purpose is taking lives and any bit of infringement or progress on gun control is the equivalent of the Holocaust.
"And you know JD Martinez truly believes this in his heart because he for sure had plenty of opportunities to take this stupid Instagram post down but nope, he posted that shit with his chest."
Lee wrote that not all racist people are "gun freaks," but he is saying "all gun freaks are racist. When fans yell racial slurs at Mookie Betts and Jackie Bradley Jr, JD Martinez probably thinks to himself ‘lol I know’. I am ready for the war against the Boston Red Sox now. Fuck JD Martinez."
It ought to be clear to all pro athletes by now: come clean with or delete any old social media posts that don't champion progressive causes. Or the media will find them and expose you for heresy. It's the new sports beat now for the "Sports and Old Social Media" sections of print and electronic media.
