Major League Baseball players are superstitious to a fault at times, and one of the biggest superstitions of all is their music selection. Generally speaking, batters get to chose the music they walk up to the plate to and relievers get their music coming out of the bullpen.
However, players don’t always get to control things and the Chicago Cubs have been forced to live down an embarrassing moment following Sunday night’s 6-4 loss to the St. Louis Cardinals. That’s because an employee chose the wrong music to play following a relief appearance from Aroldis Chapman in the ninth inning of the game.
Said employee decided it would be a wise decision to play the 1990s Prodigy hit “Smack My Bitch Up,” as Chapman left the mound. Normally, it would be chalked up to an unwise song selection but not in the case of Chapman.
After all, he did miss the first 29 games of this season while serving a suspension for his role in a domestic violence situation. Chapman had allegedly choked his girlfriend back in October of this past year and was suspended under the league’s domestic violence policy.
Those two situations combined make for more than just bad song selection at Wrigley Field, it also made for the employee playing the song getting canned. It also forced the Cubs to issue a public apology to help mitigate any backlash (if it was coming) for the ill-timed playing of the song (to say the least).
Cubs president of baseball operations Crane Kenney said the following in a statement released by the team:
“We apologize for the irresponsible music selection during our game last night. The selection of this track showed a lack of judgment and sensitivity to an important issue. We have terminated our relationship with the employee responsible for making the selection and will be implementing stronger controls to review and approve music before public broadcast during our games.”
Chapman was never charged in the incident, as police found conflicting stories and uncooperative witnesses in its investigation of what took place. However, MLB saw fit to hit Chapman with a suspension just months following a trade that landed him with the New York Yankees.
With the team from the Bronx out of playoff contention, he was dealt for a second time in less than a calendar year when the Yankees sent him to the Cubs in exchange for four players just before the trade deadline came up.
The move to get rid of the employee playing a rather off-color song after Chapman went off the mound may seem symbolic at best, but the organization had to make a move after they made their stance on what Chapman allegedly did abundantly clear.
Finally, my family, this team and Major League Baseball take the issue of domestic violence very seriously and support efforts to reduce domestic violence through education, awareness and intervention.
You can’t say you take domestic violence issues seriously and be supportive of efforts to reduce it through education, awareness, and intervention, and then allow that song to be played.
How the Cubs weren’t smart enough to have struck that song from the playlist at all is perhaps the more egregious error in judgement.
[ESPN]
