Peter Gammons is one of the most respected media personalities in baseball, but he made a comment on Thursday that he likely already regrets. When discussing the Alex Rodriguez saga with ESPN Radio’s Mike Lupica, Gammons referenced the Boston Marathon bombings.
“I’ve had people with the Yankees say this to me, he is just — he wants to blow up the world. You know, he’s like the marathon bombers,” he said, according to CBS Boston. “It’s just, he’s going to get them.”
Gammons made the remark in response to a question about what Rodriguez is looking to accomplish by storming out of his arbitration hearing and launching an attack on Bud Selig’s credibility. It is unclear if the 68-year-old was saying people with the Yankees have compared A-Rod to the Marathon bombers or if he was making the comparison himself. Either way, it was in poor taste. Here’s the audio, courtesy of Awful Announcing:
The point Gammons was trying to make is that A-Rod is determined to take down Selig and Major League Baseball. The problem is we’re talking about sports. The alleged Marathon bombers, the Tsarnaev brothers, killed three spectators during the Boston Marathon, inured 250 others and later murdered a police officer.
If Gammons came up with the comparison on his own, he made a huge mistake. If it was someone else’s thought that he was simply passing along, that is still a very regrettable lapse in judgment. Expect some sort of apology before the end of the day.
UPDATE: As expected, Gammons has issued several apologies on Twitter. One of them looked like this:
@craigcalcaterra It was a stupid, poorly worded comp of blowing up a process.Alex would never hurt a human . I hope I haven't hurt him
— Peter Gammons (@pgammo) November 21, 2013
