After Yankees' Invitation To Trump Is Criticized, He Backs Out With Flimsy, Nonsense Excuse

I drafted a post late last night (included below), titled: "Yankees Must Clearly Dis-Invite Trump To Throw Out First Pitch"

This morning, Andy Martino, who covers the Yankees for the SNY network and website, tweeted:

If there's a way for the Yankees to wiggle out of this and somehow allow Trump to feel like he saved face, would save them from so much awkwardness with employees like Stanton.

Well, something must have happened, because this tweet appeared mid-afternoon:

Because of my strong focus on the China Virus, including scheduled meetings on Vaccines, our economy and much else, I won’t be able to be in New York to throw out the opening pitch for the @Yankees on August 15th. We will make it later in the season!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 26, 2020

Trump doesn't write all of the tweets posted under his name and I don't think he wrote this one. It's too coherent. But that doesn't mean it's not laughable ("and much else"!). Trump spent this weekend strongly focused on golfing at his New Jersey course.

I agree with Martino's follow-up:

Strongly believe that the Trump first pitch won’t actually happen later this season. The Yankees largely knew it was a disaster in the making.

— Andy Martino (@martinonyc) July 26, 2020

Additionally, there is a very good chance that Yankees president Randy Levine merely mentioned the possibility and Trump exaggerated and lied about it being a done deal for August 15. It would not surprise me if Trump made the entire thing up (like he did about Michigan's "Man of the Year", an award that has never existed, yet Trump has bragged for at least four years about winning it).

I love the contrast between the Post and the Daily News in which Trump pictures they used:

Trump is taking a break from his *extremely* busy schedule to retweet random tennis videos from 20 years ago pic.twitter.com/jwbkuY59mU

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 27, 2020

***

Donald Trump announced last Thursday that he would be throwing out the ceremonial first pitch at a Yankees game next month. Trump said Randy Levine, the team's president, extended the invitation. He added the date will be Saturday, August 15.

On Opening Day, the entire Yankees team knelt before the national anthem and Giancarlo Stanton and Aaron Hicks knelt during the anthem on Saturday. Both players said they would continue to kneel as the season goes on. (No Nationals players knelt on Saturday.)

On June 8, the Yankees released a statement: "Black lives matter. The New York Yankees condemn racism, prejudice and injustice in all forms."

If those words are honest, the Yankees must clearly dis-invite Donald Trump from participating in any ceremony at Yankee Stadium as soon as possible. If Trump is part of any ceremony at Yankee Stadium, the team will have shown that its words condemning racism and prejudice were empty and made for public relations purposes only.

Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. was "shocked and outraged" at the news, accusing the Yankees of hypocrisy for giving a platform to a "unapologetic white supremacist" like Trump.

Diaz suggested the Yankees instead honour the 150,000+ Americans who have died in the last five months and the 40,000,000+ Americans who are out of work rather than Trump, "whose bluster and incompetence utterly failed to restrain the pandemic".

Hicks:

I'm a black man living in America. ... I should be judged by my character and not by my skin tone. ... It's kind of a hard thing to talk about, especially when it's my life, you know? All I want is to be treated the right way. And that's all I'm asking.

The Daily News noted that Stanton "has been particularly vocal during the pandemic ... about the United States' systemic racism", both before and after the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis.

Stanton said he and Hicks informed their teammates beforehand, "just to show that we're still in this fight. [Opening Day] was a unified message and I just want to reiterate that it can't be lost".

Stanton was asked about the invitation of Trump, who has called kneeling NFL players "sons of bitches", described Nazis as "very fine people", and gone to great lengths to stoke racial violence in the US):

I'm not positive but that's not for sure. But at the same time, we'll get there when we get there. I mean, that's in August. It's not something I need to worry about now.

Two days before Trump mentioned the Yankees' invitation, he tweeted that "kneeling during the National Anthem" is "a sign of great disrespect" and if he sees a player kneeling, "the game is over for me".

Looking forward to live sports, but any time I witness a player kneeling during the National Anthem, a sign of great disrespect for our Country and our Flag, the game is over for me!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 21, 2020