Blue Jays: Bette Midler weighs in on Troy Tulowitzki

American singer, actress and comedian Bette Midler took to Twitter Friday to comically weigh in on the situation with the Toronto Blue Jays and the recently released Troy Tulowitzki.

In a hilarious turn of events, Bette Midler, an actress and singer who is perhaps best known for her extensive musical and cinematic careers, tweeted that the Toronto Blue Jays, who just released shortstop Troy Tulowitzki, are actually paying him $38 million to not play baseball. Middler, 73, adds that for that money, she would also not play baseball. Actually, she’d do it for $37 million!

She refers to Tulowitzki as one of the Blue Jays’ “former stars” and adds that she’s “also available to not play baseball”. The tweet was retweeted over 300 times within four hours of originally being posted.

Middler, a native of Honolulu, Hawaii, has been active in the musical and film industries since breaking onto the scene in a 1965 production of Fiddler on the Roof. Since then, she’s been nominated for two Oscars, eight Golden Globes, 14 Grammys and eight Primetime Emmy Awards.

As a musical artist, Middler, who primarily writes and sings pop music and musical comedy, has sold over 30 million records and has released a total of 14 albums since her debut, The Divine Miss M, in November of 1972.

As for Troy Tulowitzki, the ageing shortstop was released by the Blue Jays on December 11 after missing the entire 2018 season due to injury. In 2017, the native of Santa Clara, California slashed .247/.300/.378 in 260 plate appearances spread out across 66 games. He also added seven home runs, 26 RBI and 10 doubles to his season’s totals.

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In parts of eleven major-league seasons, Tulowitzki, affectionately referred to as “Tulo”, has hit 224 home runs (tied for 27th among active players), driven in 779 (30th), smashed 263 doubles (50th), tallied 4793 at-bats (49th) in 1286 career games (56th) and boasts career WAR totals of 16.9 (defensive – fourth among active position players) and 34.0 (offensive – 30th).

On top of that, he’s been named an All-Star five times, has won two Gold Glove Awards and has garnered MVP votes in six different seasons, the most recent of which coming in 2014, when he was still a member of the Colorado Rockies.

Recently, Tulowitzki has been attracting quite a bit of interest as he enters the world of free agency. Though nothing concrete has been reported, it has been rumoured that the Pittsburgh Pirates, the Chicago Cubs, and others are interested in potentially signing him. If Tulowitzki resigns with another team, his new team would only owe him the league minimum, which, according to Statista, will be $555,000 in 2019.

Since being released, Tulowitzki himself has not spoken out, though his agent, Paul Cohen, has said that relations with the Blue Jays front office were never strained, and that him and his client respect the decision by the team to release him.