Following his record signing with the Dodgers this week, Trevor Bauer’s social media behavior underwent renewed scrutiny, leaving the National League Cy Young Prize-winning pitcher to answer for incidents in which he was accused of harassing women, spreading theories of conspiracy and use insensitive tongue.
“Everyone makes mistakes in the past,” Bauer said during his introductory press conference at Dodger Stadium on Thursday, during which his story on social media was the subject of several questions. “I try to learn from them as quickly as I can. I try to understand other people’s views on things and be better in the future. “
Here is an explainer about some of the Twitter exchanges that were questioned:
Alleged harassment of women by Bauer and his followers:
There were two high-profile incidents in which women accused Bauer and his hundreds of thousands of Twitter followers of harassing them on the platform.
The first occurred in January 2019, when Bauer and a student at Texas State University became involved in an exchange that began with the student calling the pitcher his “new least favorite person in all sports” after he spoke ill on Twitter Astros infielder Alex Bregman, one of his favorite players.
At first, Bauer and the student exchanged shots, like she noticing that he hadn’t won a World Series and him digging up an old tweet of hers saying he drank before his 21st birthday. Over the next few days, Bauer continued to tag her in tweets, even after she slowly stopped responding to him.
The student later told USA Today that, while Bauer continued to mark her, many of her followers continued with hateful comments directed at her.
“I cried daily and called my family crying because in the first 12-24 hours I got a lot of hate,” she said at the time, adding: “When I said I was being harassed, he continued to tweet things like that saying I was responding to him because ‘I like him’ ”.
Trevor Bauer walks up to pitcher’s mound during his introductory press conference at Dodger Stadium on Thursday.
(Jon Soohoo / Los Angeles Dodgers)
Bauer later acknowledged in a tweet that “some of the interactions related to a specific Twitter exchange may have had a negative impact. That was not my intention. I will exercise responsibility for my public platform more responsibly in the future. “
He also said at the time that he does not encourage his fans to “attack, insult or harass anyone on any social media platform or in real life. There is no room for that in the world. “
Last August, however, a similar incident occurred between Bauer, his followers and a New York Daily News reporter. Started when she took a screenshot of one of Bauer’s tweets about his behind-the-scenes videoblog of last year’s pandemic-altered season and he mockingly wrote, “When you’re definitely concerned about the health and safety of your teammates.”
Bauer replied: “When you are definitely not bad at work or are desperate for someone to notice you. Here, let me send you a few more followers. Have a wonderful day!!”
That, the reporter said in a separate tweet last month, triggered a flood of responses addressed to her by Bauer’s followers on Twitter, including “death threats and Holocaust jokes in my mentions for months after he chased me”.
After this accusation, Bauer gave Atlético a statement saying: “I do not avoid confrontation and I am often quick to defend myself, but I am by no means an aggressor and I am very offended by my character being questioned. I understand what it means to have followers on social media, but I have never asked or condemned anyone who makes obscene threats or comments on my behalf. “
During the Dodgers’ press conference on Thursday, he did not specifically comment on his interactions with any of the women when asked about them directly.
Tweet involving Obama’s conspiracy theory:
the same president who was supposedly not born in the United States made exactly the same ban
– Trevor Bauer (ト レ バ ー ・ バ ウ ア ー) (@BauerOutage) February 10, 2017
In February 2017, Bauer tweeted that he was “really angry” that Apple and Twitter “continue to flood my phone with biased anti-trump articles. fair and equal reporting? No?”
When someone responded to him by mentioning former President Trump’s so-called Muslim ban, Bauer responded with an apparent reference to an unfounded conspiracy theory about former President Obama’s birthplace, writing: “the same president who was supposedly not born in United States did exactly the same ban. “
Tweet responding to a fake quote by George Soros:
you can’t spread the truth like that because then you are a “racist” or “conspiracy theorist”
– Trevor Bauer (ト レ バ ー ・ バ ウ ア ー) (@BauerOutage) November 10, 2016
The day after the 2016 presidential election, Bauer tweeted “I hope EVERYONE. NOT MARRIED. INDIVIDUAL. this is part of a voted #TrumpProtest because if you didn’t vote and are protesting … oooooooo kid ”, with two angry face emojis.
When someone responded to him with a false quote about wanting to overthrow the country, which was falsely attributed to billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros – who was the target of other anti-Semitic conspiracy theories – Bauer apparently portrayed this as a fact, writing: “ You can’t spread the truth like that because then you are a ‘racist’ or ‘conspiracy theorist’.
Tweet criticized as transphobic:
I identify myself as a 12 year old boy. It’s 2019. You need to empathize with me and my condition.
– Trevor Bauer (ト レ バ ー ・ バ ウ ア ー) (@BauerOutage) January 6, 2019
On the same day the incident with the Texas State University student began, Bauer became involved in an exchange with another Twitter user in which, in a tweet, he wrote, apparently in a joking tone: “I identify myself as a boy 12 years. It’s 2019. You need to empathize with me and my condition. “
This type of language – Bauer tweeted the phrase “I identify as a 12-year-old boy” three other times in the previous two months – has been criticized for making light of transsexuals and not binaries. In a subsequent exchange, Bauer objected to such claims, writing “[I’ve] never tweeted anything remotely transphobic. In fact, I have publicly declared support for the movement ”and“ Please inform me how this is a transphobic statement. Maybe I’m just missing something here … because I don’t understand. “
Defense Name of Cleveland Indians:
I haven’t met a single Native American yet who thinks he’s racist. Shut up
– Trevor Bauer (ト レ バ ー ・ バ ウ ア ー) (@BauerOutage) February 10, 2017
During his fifth season with the Cleveland Indians in 2017, a fan tweeted to Bauer asking if he “agreed with racist cartoons for all races or just for Native Americans?” in apparent reference to the team name and Chief Wahoo’s logo.
Bauer responded by writing that he has not yet “met a single Native American who thinks he is racist. Shut up. “
The name of the Indians, of course, had been protested by various groups of Native Americans for years before Bauer’s tweet. In 2018, the team removed the Chief Wahoo logo. Last December, the organization announced that it would change its name from the 2021 season.