Toronto Blue Jays’ reliever Anthony Bass had received some harsh criticism and backlash ever since his posts on Twitter back in mid-April with regards to the popcorn incident that occurred for his wife and daughter on a United Airlines flight. Throughout the time over the next couple of weeks, he constantly had to endure some rough trolling and harassment through his social media account. This was kind of what it felt like for Bass day in and day out:
Coincidentally or not, Bass had only appeared in three games for the Jays since the incident on April 16th, perhaps to help avoid as much media attention as possible. However, he performed at a sub-par level in those three appearances, pitching in only 2.2 innings, giving up three hits, three runs, including a home run, to go along with one walk and two strikeouts. Added to the fact that he already wasn’t having a good year to date, with an ERA of 7.00 and WHIP of 1.78, giving up seven earned runs in just nine innings pitched with four walks and seven strikeouts, the constant trolling sure didn’t help his cause. Together, it had drawn the increasing ire of the fanbase.
Well, on Monday, the intense trolling had reached an unbearable boiling point, so much that Bass has finally decided to put down the foot and deleted his Twitter account. In doing so, he hopes to alleviate any more of the stress and tension that it inadvertently has brought to him, his family and the ballclub.
Hopefully this allows Bass to focus solely on what’s more relevant and important for him, which is getting away from all the media distraction and just get back to pitching. In addition, he probably wants to delete his underwhelming performance in April as well and work hard in getting back to pitching effectively again like the way he used to in 2022 to help the Jays as much as possible in a more positive, and less distracting way.