‘Virtue Signaling PR’: Yankees, Rays Slammed For Tweeting About Guns Instead Of Baseball | Eastern NC Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Hank Berrien.

    The New York Yankees and the Tampa Bay Rays decided to offer their unsolicited opinions about guns and gun control on their Twitter feeds Thursday, precipitating anger from some fans who wants sports to stay out of politics.

    The Yankees played against the Rays in St. Petersburg, Florida, Thursday night in the first of a four-game series.

    "The Rays, whose team colors are blue and white, changed the background banner of their Twitter account to orange, which is frequently used for gun violence awareness and prevention efforts, with a banner that read, 'End Gun Violence,'" The New York Times reported.

    "Rays communications staff members led the effort to research and vet the facts, an initiative assisted by Jason Zillo, the Yankees' vice president of communications," The Times added.

    "In lieu of game coverage and in collaboration with @Yankees, we will use our channels to offer facts about the impacts of gun violence," the Rays started their Twitter thread, which was identical to the Yankees'. "The devastating events that took place in Uvalde, Buffalo and countless other communities across our nation are tragedies that are intolerable."

    "Every day, more than 110 Americans are killed with guns, and more than 200 are shot and injured," the Rays continued. "Firearms were the leading cause of death for American children and teens in 2020. ... 58 percent of American adults or someone they care for have experienced gun violence."

    Then they turned to race and gender: "Every three hours, a young Black man dies by gun homicide. ... Each year, more than 4,100 Latinx people die from gun violence in the U.S. and 13,300 are shot and wounded. ... About 4.5 million women in the US today report having been threatened with a gun by an intimate partner."

    More: "Access to a gun triples the risk of death by suicide. ... An average of 4,500 veterans die by firearm suicide every year - about 12 veterans each day.

    They quoted the gun control advocates everytownresearch: "When an assault weapon is used in a mass shooting, it results in six times as many people shot than when other guns are used."

    Although the teams were praised by many people on social media, others criticized them for bringing politics into sports:

    Other fans expressed their disenchantment on Twitter with comments such as "Bro can we have our goddamn sports as an escape? We're bombarded with this 24/7. Sports needs to be relief from that," and "Why don't the @Yankees post about what's happening in their home state on the subways."

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