Brewers reliever Josh Hader pitched just a third of an inning during Tuesday night’s MLB All-Star Game, and allowed a mighty three-run Jean Segura tater that put the American League ahead in the eighth. His hair was perfect, but it was otherwise not a great night for Milwaukee’s closer. But getting donged up is not the reason why he was trending on social media before the game was even over. That happened because a bunch of his old tweets started recirculating mid-game, for depressingly familiar reasons:
You will note that all these tweets are screencapped—Hader evidently got wind of the resurrection of some of his choicest teenaged tweets and locked his account in the middle of the All-Star Game. But nothing dies on the internet!
Word very obviously got around the stadium that Hader was in some trouble:
While he evidently has many tweets to delete and account for, Hader likely won’t be the only one hastily deleting some stuff tonight:
MLB grabbed Hader up immediately after the game ended and put him in front of reporters, to express his regret and embarrassment:
Hader would’ve been 17 years old when he saw fit to fart most of these vile thoughts out into the world—old enough to know better, of course, but young enough to still be a punk teenager, and a punk teenager who was tweeting at a time when Twitter was not remotely what it is now. He will have to eat shit for all this, one way or another, and he’ll deserve every bite of it. But there’s a teachable moment here all the same. Lesson one is don’t be an outrageous bigot. Lesson two, as always, is never tweet.
Update: Here’s video of Hader speaking after the game: