Inside Nick Saban’s school of QB development, from practice field trash talk to Sunday morning film sessions
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Alex Scarborough, ESPN Staff Writer
Greg McElroy recalled waiting until after his freshman year in 2007 to ask Alabama coach Nick Saban for a favor. McElroy figured Saban didn’t need the whole backstory about his dad’s lifelong dream to see him wear Joe Namath’s number, so he pulled Saban aside one day and asked him straight up for the change to No. 12.
“You know,” Saban said, “that’s the number I wore.”
McElroy said he shot back, “Yeah, that’s of course why I want to switch to it. Namath, [Kenny] Stabler, those guys have nothing to do with it. It’s really about you.”
Saban obliged, but the accommodation came with expectations. Because Saban not only wore No. 12, he wore it while quarterbacking his high school to a state championship in 1968. It’s a fact that every Alabama quarterback who spoke to ESPN said they were aware of — even Bryce Young, who wasn’t born until three decades later. Young grinned and said Saban will “tell you about the West Virginia days, for sure.”
A former Monongah High teammate, Walter Baranski, said Saban was “the top dog out there.” Jim Pulice, another teammate, added, “He could walk out on the field and see a defense and catch it all.”
Tua Tagovailoa said Saban would boast that “he’s the best athlete.” Saban was well rounded, all-state in basketball and baseball as well. If he wasn’t a few hairs shy of 6-feet, he might have lasted longer as a quarterback at Kent State before making the switch to defensive back. “I couldn’t see as well, especially in the pocket,” Saban recalled of the transition to college. “But if it just came to throwing the ball and doing that stuff, I was OK.”
While he never switched back to offense, instead developing into one of the preeminent defensive minds in football, his background playing quarterback informed his relationship with the position as a head coach. We spoke to seven current or former starters at Alabama to learn more about their day-to-day interactions. Together, they told the story of a coach who invests his time in order to build trust and ultimately benefit the team. There are regular one-on-one meetings that can range from discussion of X’s and O’s and personnel to how to handle interpersonal relationships and the grind of a long season — all made lighter by Saban’s occasional ribbing.
“I threw a good spiral,” McElroy said. “But in the rare instance if I threw a ball that wasn’t perfect or wasn’t pretty, you were going to hear about it from him.”
Blake Sims, who started 14 games for Alabama in 2014, can picture Saban now, running behind him after the stretch period of practice and chiding him, “Hey 6, I bet you can’t throw the ball like this.” Saban would then gather the defensive backs for individual drills, planting his right leg and tossing passes to them as they ran down the sideline. Always a good loft, almost always a tight spiral.
“Hey 6,” Sims remembers Saban bellowing, “you need to come over here and throw like this.”
Jake Coker, who followed Sims as the starter, laughed at his version of the same story. He said it’s a shame most people don’t get to experience Saban’s sharp sense of humor, including some “legendary jokes” he says aren’t fit for print.
“There’s something funny about seeing a 70-year-old in a straw hat throwing the ball around and cussing 20-year-olds out,” Coker said.
While Saban was never shy about dolling out a tongue-lashing in public, in private Coker and other former Alabama quarterbacks paint a different picture of the coach. Coker said Saban met with him often while he battled Cooper Bateman for the starting job early in 2015. Saban sensed Coker getting in his own way — too worried about messing up and agonizing over his reads instead of letting the ball go.
“He’d talk to me and get me to a place where I was going out there and reacting instead of overthinking each moment,” Coker said. “A lot of our conversations were tailored toward the mental aspect.”
He added, “I would say he’s the best at managing emotions of any coach I’ve been around. I mean, when he gets mad, you know you deserve it. And when he pats you on the back, you deserve it.”
This year’s starter, Jalen Milroe, has felt both the sting of disappointment and the joy of success with Saban — and often in a public setting.
Along the way, as Alabama recovered from an early-season loss and found its way back to the College Football Playoff, Saban challenged Milroe.
“Embrace hard,” Milroe recalled Saban telling him, “and embrace the role of being a quarterback and being a leader of the team.”
SIMS AND OTHERS describe Saban as something of a clairvoyant, knowing exactly the right buttons to push at exactly the right time. It certainly looked that way at halftime of the 2017 national championship when Saban benched former SEC Offensive Player of the Year Jalen Hurts in favor of a true freshman, Tagovailoa. And it worked again this season when he sat Milroe a week after he threw two interceptions in a loss to Texas. Milroe responded by finishing sixth in the Heisman Trophy voting and leading Alabama to the playoff, where it will face Michigan in the Rose Bowl presented by Prudential on Monday (5 p.m. ET, ESPN).
Sims said he’s asked all the time about what makes Saban different — how can he bench an accomplished starter and not lose them for the rest of the season? Hurts sat most of the 2018 season behind Tagovailoa but was ready to go when his number was called in the SEC championship game, coming off the sideline to beat Georgia after Tagovailoa was hobbled by an ankle injury. Sims said that’s possible only because Saban makes a point of getting to know his players, so he understands how to keep them motivated and engaged.
“I was that type of player that if you tell me I won the position, maybe I might slack off a little bit. But if I knew I was always in competition, I played to the top of my ability,” Sims said. “And maybe Coach Saban knew that. …’Just as quick as I named you the starting quarterback, I can take it from you.'”
Go back to the 2014 season after Sims came out of the gates hot, throwing for 445 yards and four touchdowns against Florida in a pivotal Week 4 matchup. He went from a former receiver no one expected anything from to one of the most exciting players in the SEC.
And then Saban stopped him in the hallway one day.
“I had nothing but rat poison all on me. He could just smell it and everything,” Sims said. “And he just pulled me in his office and just gave it to me. I can’t remember his exact words, but he just gave me an ear full.
“When I walked out of there, man, I think I went straight to the weight room.”
Sims laughed.
“How he finds things out, I don’t know,” he said. “I still wonder to this day.”
But go back a few weeks earlier, the morning of the Florida game that put Sims on the map, and you get another side of Saban’s mentorship.
Sims was nervous — it being his first start in Bryant-Denny Stadium — as he headed to breakfast at the team hotel. That’s when strength coach Scott Cochran growled at him, “Walk around that corner. Coach Saban wants to talk to you.”
Saban was waiting for him and said, “So Sims, what do we need to do to get you going? For you to be comfortable?”
Sims decided to be honest.
“Coach,” he said, “when I go fast it gets me in my rhythm where I don’t have to think. Let’s just go.”
Saban asked, “So NASCAR?” which is shorthand for the hurry-up offense.
Sims said yes.
Saban shook his head and said, “OK.”
That Saban wanted his input was humbling, Sims said. That he was open to shifting from a ball-control style of offense to more uptempo was a lesson Sims said he thinks about a lot now, coaching at Mt. Bethel Christian Academy in Marietta, Georgia.
“Seeing him do that lets you know even when you’re at the top of your game, you still need help,” he said. “You can’t do it by yourself.”
Sims cherishes his relationship with Saban. He went from being unsure about whether Saban knew his name to being comfortable tossing barbs back and forth.
Saban told Sims often about his Monongah days, specifically how he was given the freedom by his coach to call plays.
“But we let him know, ‘Hey, Coach, you play in this day and time and we’ll smack you,'” Sims said.
Speaking to Milroe earlier this season, Saban leaned on his hoops background, advising the dual-threat QB to “be a point guard with the ball and get the ball to playmakers to allow explosive plays.”
“Initially, you’d probably think it was just Coach Saban talking, but it’s also an opportunity for me to talk,” Milroe said of their conversations. “A lot of times, we just talk about life. He’s helped me with some personal things, and he’s been there for me throughout the season. The main thing is that we both talk, what we see in games, feedback from games. He sees a lot of things I don’t see, and he’s always willing to listen if I see something.”
Young enjoyed two seasons starting for Saban and “being able to have a conversation about some bigger picture stuff — about the team, about stuff he’s feeling, what he sees, what he needs from us as leaders, and us, our side.”
“We’re all kind of working towards that same goal,” he said. “So it was really cool just coming as a freshman, proving myself. That’s something you have to earn at Alabama. You have to earn that trust, earn everything. And then getting to that point definitely my last two years of building our relationship and then being to where it is now, I’m super grateful.”
AJ McCARRON REMEMBERS his Sunday morning one-on-one debriefing sessions with Saban.
“He was always up there early,” he recalled. “We would sit there and watch the film from the game, and most of the time we’d watch the whole film, kind of just see the flow of the game, talk about the flow, talk about their defense, what else they could have done, what we could have done as an offense, in my opinion.
“But I liked doing that as a freshman just because I got to learn a lot, even from the defensive side, what’s their thought process on things and how they see certain formations and how they plan to cover certain routes and stuff.”
Sometimes, McElroy said, you’d look forward to those meetings. Other times, not so much.
“You could kind of tell where the meeting was going to go based on how you played,” McElroy said.
Asked if he was thinking of a specific meeting, McElroy groaned.
“One in particular,” he said. “It was awful.”
It was the Sunday after playing Ole Miss in 2009. It was McElroy’s first truly hostile road environment, Alabama was undefeated, and the Rebs were ranked. And McElroy was off from the start. Coaches called “Boom,” which McElroy said is a “smash concept with a guy in the flat and a guy running a corner.”
The first time, he threw it into double coverage to Julio Jones for an incompletion.
The next time, on the opposite end of the field, he again threw it into double coverage to Jones for an incompletion.
It just so happened that both times the receiver in the flat was wide open.
McElroy woke up Sunday morning dreading going to Saban’s office.
“I knew he would say, ‘Why didn’t you take the flat?’ And I didn’t really have a reason,” he said. “You can’t say I was looking at the rush.”
Never mind he had a good excuse.
“Greg Hardy cleaned my clock on the first play of the game,” he said.
So McElroy thought about it and came up with an admittedly “ridiculous excuse” about Julio being open.
Saban wasn’t buying it.
“He was so disgruntled, he wanted me to go down and get checked for a concussion because my reads were so bad,” McElroy said. “I know it was his way of jabbing at me. He said, ‘You need to go down and see [head trainer Jeff Allen] and get checked. That’s ridiculous.’
“Jeff was a good sport about it, Coach was a good sport about it. After the fact we can laugh about it. But at the time, it was like, ‘Oh, God. I can’t believe I made the same mistake twice.’ Because the one thing was, he could live with a mistake. That happens. But you make the same mistake twice, you need to tighten it up.”
In games, McElroy and other quarterbacks described Saban as mostly hands off. The only time they’d hear from him is if they committed a mental error — like the time Coker didn’t throw the ball away at the end of the first half of a blowout win and cost the team a field goal.
“That was one of those headset-tearing-apart moments where he got me pretty much from the sideline all the way to the tunnel,” Coker said. “It was one of those where as soon as I did it I thought, ‘Oh my God, you’re such a dumbass. I know I’m going to hear about this all the way back to the locker room.’ And I did. He lost his mind.”
Coker couldn’t remember exactly what Saban said, it was such a blur of expletives. Coker muttered “Yes, sir” again and again in hopes it would end the conversation quicker.
“If it’s within your mental control, I mean, he’s going to be mad about it,” he said. “But if you’re going 100% and you just screw it up, then he can live with that. If you screw up, he moves on. And if you throw a good ball, he is high-fiving.”
It turns out that backups get worn out a lot more than starters, McElroy said, and with good reason.
“He didn’t want to affect the starter’s confidence and he wanted to just make sure the starter felt good,” he said. “And the backup, if you make a mistake, you’re very much in developmental mode at that point, so your confidence isn’t quite as important.”
So much of playing quarterback is what happens between the ears, and Saban is careful to keep that in mind.
When Coker met with him, they didn’t spend a ton of time going over the playbook, he said. It was more about situational awareness — “on and off the field.” Coker said Saban gave him good advice on how to “maneuver through the season” and handle personal relationships on the team.
Together, they won a national championship.
And, like Milroe, it started with Coker riding the bench early in the season.
Would he have liked to avoid the stress of all that? Sure.
But he can’t argue with the results.
“I don’t know, maybe if I was named the starter and I knew that everybody that had my back I would’ve gone in and played with a lot more confidence and played with no restraint as well,” Coker said. “But I know benching me made me that way for sure.”
ESPN reporters Ben Baby, David Newton and Marcel Louis-Jacques contributed to this story.
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Greg Wyshynski
Kyle Palmieri has signed a new two-year contract with the New York Islanders, as one of the better options among free-agent scoring wingers is now off the market.
Palmieri’s contract carries a $4.75 million average annual value. He’s coming off a 4-year, $20-million deal with the Islanders that was signed in Sept. 2021. According to PuckPedia, the new deal has a full no-trade clause in the first year with a modified 16-team no-trade list for the 2026-27 season.
Palmieri, a 34-year-old Long Island native, scored 48 points (24 goals, 24 assists) in 82 games with the Islanders last season. He’s scored more than 20 goals in seven of his last 10 NHL seasons.
In 900 career games with the Islanders, New Jersey Devils and Anaheim Ducks, Palmieri scored 527 points (270 goals, 257 assists). He scored 32 points (18 goals, 14 assists) in 68 Stanley Cup Playoff games.
The Islanders also signed defenseman Adam Boqvist to a one-year contract. He had 14 points in 35 games last season between the Florida Panthers and the Islanders, who claimed him on waivers in January.
New York has had a noteworthy offseason thus far. They won the NHL Draft Lottery for the first time since 2009, earning the first overall pick in next month’s entry draft. They also replaced general manager Lou Lamoriello with Tampa Bay Lightning executive Mathieu Darche, who was named the Islanders’ GM and executive vice president.
According to multiple reports, the contracts for Palmieri and Boqvist were agreed to before Darche was hired, and the new general manager honored them.
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Kiley McDaniel
As the NCAA regionals begin in college baseball, award voting and regular-season stats give you a good idea who performed well this season, while my draft rankings and mock drafts let you know who will go early in this summer’s draft. But which colleges can claim bragging rights for having the most pro talent on their rosters across all draft classes?
I have a bit of an obsession — but also detailed spreadsheets sourced from advanced data and scouts, so I can answer this question by examining how many players (regardless of class) project as future draft prospects.
Because the draft and projections for pro success look heavily at tools and age, those things are emphasized through the process once you get past the surface statistics in my formula.
I’ll remind you that these margins are really tight — if you add one second-rounder to any of the teams below, it will probably move up a few spots — and I used all pro-caliber players to formulate the ranking, even though we list just the top-two-rounds prospects on each team’s current roster below. Players who are currently injured count for this exercise, but I dinged the team rating a bit if you won’t see the player this postseason, and all players listed are 2025 draft-eligible unless otherwise indicated.
Without further delay, here are the most loaded rosters in college baseball:
1. Tennessee
Top-two-rounds prospects: LHP Liam Doyle, SS Gavin Kilen, 3B Andrew Fischer, RHP Marcus Phillips, C Levi Clark (2027), 3B Dean Curley, RHP A.J. Russell
Before I started this process, I figured the Volunteers would win, and they did, carried by a really strong 2025 draft class highlighted by Liam Doyle — who is projected to go No. 2 in my most recent mock.
And Tennessee has even more talent than the names listed above. RHP Tanner Franklin and Nate Snead are two key bullpen arms who reach the triple digits and didn’t qualify, while a number of other players could step up into top-two-round relevance with expanded roles next season, such as RHP Tegan Kuhns and 2B/CF Jay Abernathy.
2. Arkansas
Top-two-rounds prospects: SS Wehiwa Aloy, RHP Gage Wood, C Ryder Helfrick (2026), LHP Zach Root, OF Charles Davalan, LHP Cole Gibler (2027), RHP Gabe Gaeckle
The Razorbacks weren’t the first team I thought of when guessing who would be near the top of this ranking because they don’t have as many top-of-the-first-round prospects as some others, though they annually have tons of pro talent, so this isn’t a shocker.
Aloy is probably the one prospect projected for the top half of the first round of the group, but the rest of the list belongs in the late-first to early-second range, with a number of intriguing talents beyond that, including 3B Brent Iredale and about a half-dozen different pitchers.
3. LSU
Top-two-rounds prospects: LHP Kade Anderson, OF Derek Curiel (2026) RHP Casan Evans (2027), RHP Anthony Eyanson, SS Steven Milam (2026), RHP William Schmidt (2027), 2B Daniel Dickinson
The Tigers are often loaded with pro talent under skipper Jay Johnson, and this year is no different. Scouts soured a bit on Curiel as a high school senior, but he has proved them wrong as a freshman, looking like a first-rounder so far. Evans and Eyanson were revelations as newcomers, and Schmidt has the potential to fit that description in an expanded role next season.
4. Texas
Top-two-rounds prospects: 3B Adrian Rodriguez (2027), LHP Dylan Volantis (2027), RHP Jason Flores (2027), RF Max Belyeu, 2B Ethan Mendoza (2026)
Texas is stocked with underclassmen with early-round upside as Mendoza and Rodriguez will anchor the infield next season and I’d guess Volantis and Flores will both move into the rotation after strong relief performances as freshmen. LHP Jared Spencer would’ve easily qualified before his injury earlier this month.
5. Florida
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Liam Peterson (2026), RHP Aidan King (2027), SS Brendan Lawson (2027), RHP Luke McNeillie (2026)
The Gators are the first team with no 2025 draft-eligible players listed, though 2B Cade Kurland would probably qualify if he were healthy all season, and SS Colby Shelton would also likely sneak in if he were 21 years old rather than 22. Peterson is the top college arm for 2026 and King looks like one of many future 2027 first-rounders who popped as freshmen this season; most of them are listed here.
6. Florida State
Top-two-rounds prospects: LHP Jamie Arnold, LHP Wes Mendes (2026), SS Alex Lodise, 2B Drew Faurot
The Noles have solid high-end talent, with three possible first-round talents headlined by likely top-10 pick Arnold. The depth doesn’t stop there as OF Max Williams and RHP Cam Leiter (injured) might be third-rounders this year, and underclassmen C Hunter Carns and LF Myles Bailey are also showing flashes.
7. Wake Forest
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Chris Levonas (2027), SS Marek Houston, RF Ethan Conrad
Wake has graduated a number of standout players to pro ball in the past few years and has another solid crop coming this year, with Houston and Conrad both likely first-round picks. Levonas didn’t sign as a second-round pick out of high school last year, and early returns suggest he might be a high first-rounder in a few years.
8. Oregon State
Top-two-rounds prospects: SS Aiva Arquette, RHP Dax Whitney (2027)
The Beavers have only two players listed here, but both look like top-10 picks. There are also a number of interesting prospects in the third-to-fourth-round range for this year’s draft, including OF Gavin Turley, LHP Nelson Keljo and 3B Trent Caraway.
9. Oklahoma
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Kyson Witherspoon, SS Jaxon Willits (2026), C Easton Carmichael, RHP Malachi Witherspoon, LHP Cade Crossland
Oklahoma has five prospects listed here, though only Kyson Witherspoon is a clear top-50 pick; the other five are all later second-round or early third-round types of prospects. This rotation makes the Sooners dangerous in a postseason format.
10. TCU
Top-two-rounds prospects: RHP Tommy Lapour (2026), OF Sawyer Strosnider (2026), LHP Mason Brassfield (2027)
TCU’s crop of prospects who made the list (and OF Noah Franco, who was in contention) are all underclassmen, which bodes well for the future. Lapour has three above-average pitches and is the second-best college pitcher for next year’s draft.
11. Mississippi State
Top-two-rounds prospects: OF Nolan Stevens (2026), 3B Ace Reese (2026), RHP Ryan McPherson (2027)
Stevens and Reese both look like potential first-round picks for next year’s draft; Reese is an excellent hitter with medium power, while Stevens has some swing and miss to his game but easy plus raw power. McPherson is the best prospect among a number of interesting underclassman arms, though 22-year-old LHP Pico Kohn is the most impactful for this season.
12. Georgia Tech
Top-two-rounds prospects: OF Drew Burress (2026), C Vahn Lackey (2026), SS Kyle Lodise, 2B Alex Hernandez (2026)
Burress is in the running to go No. 1 in next year’s draft due to his standout power/speed combination. Lackey and Lodise look like solid second-rounders. Hernandez is a borderline second-rounder thanks to a strong freshman year.
The next half-dozen teams: Alabama, Auburn, Vanderbilt, Oregon, Ole Miss, North Carolina
HOUSTON — Soon after Lance McCullers Jr.’s family received online death threats following a tough start by the Astros pitcher, his 5-year-old daughter, Ava, overheard wife Kara talking on the phone about it.
What followed was a painful conversation between McCullers and his little girl.
“She asked me when I came home: ‘Daddy, like, what is threats? Who wants to hurt us? Who wants to hurt me?'” McCullers told The Associated Press on Wednesday. “So those conversations are tough to deal with.”
McCullers is one of two MLB pitchers whose families have received online death threats this month as internet abuse of players and their families is on the rise. Boston Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks took to social media soon after the incident with McCullers to call out people who were threatening Hendriks’ wife’s life and directing “vile” comments at him.
The Astros contacted MLB security and the Houston Police Department following the threats to McCullers. A police spokesperson said Thursday that it remains an ongoing investigation.
McCullers, who has two young daughters, took immediate action after the threats and reached out to the team to inquire about what could be done to protect his family. Astros owner Jim Crane stepped in and hired 24-hour security for them.
It was a move McCullers felt was necessary after what happened.
“You have to at that point,” he said.
Players around the league agree that online abuse has gotten progressively worse in recent years. Milwaukee‘s Christian Yelich, a 13-year veteran and the 2018 National League MVP, said receiving online abuse is “a nightly thing” for most players.
“I think over the last few years it’s definitely increased,” he said. “It’s increased to the point that you’re just: ‘All right, here we go.’ It doesn’t even really register on your radar anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It’s not just me. It’s everybody in here, based on performance.”
And many players believe it’s directly linked to the rise in legalized sports betting.
“You get a lot of DMs or stuff like that about you ruining someone’s bet or something ridiculous like that,” veteran Red Sox reliever Justin Wilson said. “I guess they should make better bets.”
Hendriks, a 36-year-old reliever who previously underwent treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, said on Instagram that he and his wife received death threats after a loss to the New York Mets. He added that people left comments saying that they wished he would have died from cancer, among other abusive comments.
“Enough is enough,” he said. “Like at some point, everyone just like sucking up and dealing with it isn’t accomplishing anything. And we pass along to security. We pass along to whoever we need to, but nothing ends up happening. And it happens again the next night.
“And so, at some point, someone has to make a stand. And it’s one of those things where, the more eyes we get on it, the more voices we get talking about it, hopefully it can push it in the right direction.”
Both the Astros and the Red Sox are working with MLB security to take action against social media users who direct threats toward players and their families. Red Sox spokesperson Abby Murphy said they have taken steps in recent years to make sure players’ families are safe during games. That includes security staff and Boston police stationed in the family section at home and dedicated security in the traveling party to monitor the family section on the road.
“I think over the last few years it’s definitely increased. It’s increased to the point that you’re just: ‘All right, here we go.’ It doesn’t even really register on your radar anymore. I don’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing. You’re just so used to that on a day-to-day, night-to-night basis. It’s not just me. It’s everybody in here, based on performance.”
Christian Yelich, on players receiving threatening messages
Murphy said identifying those who make anonymous threats online is difficult, but “both the Red Sox and MLB have cyber programs and analysts dedicated to identifying and removing these accounts.”
The Astros have uniformed police officers stationed in the family section, a practice that was implemented well before the threats to McCullers and his family.
For some players, online abuse has gotten so bad that they have abandoned social media. Detroit Tigers All-Star outfielder Riley Greene said he got off social media because he received so many messages from people blaming him for failed bets.
“I deleted it,” he said of Instagram. “I’m off it. It sucks, but it’s the world we live in, and we can’t do anything about it. People would DM me and say nasty things, tell me how bad of a player I am and say nasty stuff that we don’t want to hear.”
The 31-year-old McCullers, who returned this year after missing two full seasons with injuries, said dealing with this has been the worst thing that has happened in his career. He understands the passion of fans and knows that being criticized for a poor performance is part of the game. But he believes there’s a “moral line” that fans shouldn’t cross.
“People should want us to succeed,” he said. “We want to succeed, but it shouldn’t come at a cost to our families, the kids in our life, having to feel like they’re not safe where they live or where they sit at games.”
Astros manager Joe Espada was livid when he learned about the threats to McCullers and his family and was visibly upset when he addressed what happened with reporters.
Espada said the team has mental health professionals available to the players to talk about the toll such abuse takes on them and any other issues they may be dealing with.
“We are aware that when we step on the field, fans expect and we expect the best out of ourselves,” Espada said this week. “But when we are trying to do our best and things don’t go our way while we’re trying to give you everything we got and now you’re threatening our families and kids — now I do have a big issue with that, right? I just did not like it.”
Kansas City‘s Salvador Perez, a 14-year MLB veteran, hasn’t experienced online abuse but was appalled by what happened to McCullers. If something like that happened to him, he said, it would change the way he interacts with fans.
“Now some fans, real fans, they’re going to pay for that too,” he said. “Because if I was him, I wouldn’t take a picture or sign anything for nobody because of that one day.”
McCullers wouldn’t go that far but admitted it has changed his mindset.
“It does make you kind of shell up a little bit,” he said. “It does make you kind of not want to go places. I guess that’s just probably the human reaction to it.”
While most players have dealt with some level of online abuse in their careers, no one has a good idea of how to stop it.
“I’m thankful I’m not in a position where I have to find a solution to this,” Tigers pitcher Tyler Holton said. “But as a person who is involved in this, I wish this wasn’t a topic of conversation.”
Chicago White Sox outfielder Mike Tauchman is disheartened at how bad player abuse has gotten. While it’s mostly online, he said he has had teammates that have had racist and homophobic things yelled at them during games.
“Outside of just simply not having social media, I really don’t see that getting better before it just continues to get worse,” he said. “I mean, I think it’s kind of the way things are now. Like, people just feel like they have the right to say whatever they want to whoever they want and it’s behind a keyboard and there’s really no repercussions, right?”
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