Marcus Stroman goes full Kanye

I’ll be honest, I didn’t realize there were this many galaxy-brained doofuses in the world of sports. But I was naive.

If you’ve ever wondered what pitchers do on their off-days, the Cubs’ Marcus Stroman reveals that at least some of them spend their time going down internet rabbit holes about things like “whoever controls the media controls the world!” and so on.

Stroman, apropos of nothing (but maybe apropos of Kyrie Irving? It’s unclear), took to Twitter this morning to enlighten us all with what sure looks like an antisemitic dog whistle that Stroman is too afraid to fully blow.

Behold:

He goes on about the media for some time, refusing to say exactly what he means.

While demanding that people pay more attention to “facts” and “evidence,” Stroman refused to provide any, relying instead on a legion of Joe Rogan/Elon Musk fanboys to ride to his rescue.

Some pointed out that Stroman recently liked a Jason Whitlock tweet defending Kyrie Iriving, which said, “Cowards ripping @KyrieIrving for retweeting a documentary that is being promoted on Jeff Bezos’ Amazon platform. A certain demographic’s thoughts are heavily policed while others are free to think what they want.”

And while RTing a guy like Whitlock always puts you on the wrong side of any issue, the more concerning dog whistle here is that “Jews control the media” has long been an antisemitic trope. Stroman’s cryptic tweets, so close in time to Kanye West’s antisemitic meltdown, raised some real questions among fans.

The American Jewish Committee publishes a document on common antisemitic tropes, and says the following:

“False reports that claim Jews control the media, banks, and governments are part of a longstanding conspiracy of secret Jewish power. This antisemitic trope is rooted in the discredited publication, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was published in Russian tsarist times and accused Jews of trying to control the world … These myths of control portray Jews as secret puppet masters ruling over others and manipulating the world’s economies and governments For centuries, Jews were blamed for leading “blind” world leaders into wars and into debt to enrich themselves and further their own hidden agenda. Antisemitic propaganda continues to spread the idea that rich or influential Jews are behind the scenes furthering their plans of world domination.”

As several people pointed out, it would have been really easy for Stroman to put this controversy to rest. All Stroman had to do was say that he wasn’t talking about the Jewish community and that he decries antisemitism. But at the time of publication, that pronouncement never came, and many of the comments under Stroman’s original post, which I won’t make you suffer through here, make clear that his message came through loud and clear to a certain audience.

This isn’t the first time Stroman has gotten criticism over his social media usage. Back in 2021, Stroman appeared to like a tweet calling a sports writer a slur for Italian Americans.

If Aaron Rodgers taught us anything, it’s that when athletes are “just asking the question,” it’s time to log off and stop listening. And while it’s not clear that Stroman was actually being intentionally antisemitic in his posts, it’s pretty clear that that’s what many of his followers thought he was doing, and many chimed in to agree. So goes another day on Elon Musk’s free-speech social media platform.