Long-time New York sports talk host Mike Francesa took umbrage with a Daily Beast article criticizing former Yankee pitcher Mariano Rivera for his “secret far-right politics.”
“You shouldn’t judge a person based on whether he is a liberal or a conservative,” Francesa said on his radio show when asked about the story ripping the new baseball Hall-of-Famer. “That doesn’t make them a bad person, because he’s a liberal or a conservative. I mean come on, you’re defaming him based on what his beliefs are? How about his actions? Mariano’s actions, write about those, speak about those. Those are extraordinary and they’re exemplary, and they’re still exemplary even if you don’t agree with his politics.”
Daily Beast writer Robert Silverman criticized Rivera, in part, for his support of President Donald J. Trump and Israel.
“[Rivera] served at the pleasure of a racist president, taken part in thinly veiled propaganda on behalf of an apartheid government in Israel,” Silverman wrote.
Francesa feels the writer was “wrong” for publishing the story focusing on Rivera’s politics.
“Instead of looking at Mariano the baseball player, and appreciating that he has been a great performer, and a classy individual every step of his life, on the baseball field and off, instead of him being an exemplary role model and a tremendous pitcher, which no one can dispute, you’re now going to knock him, and defame him, because you don’t agree with his politics. So who is wrong? [Silverman] is.”
Francesa feels Rivera’s dominance on the field can’t be downgraded due to his politics.
“He’s still great, even though now you don’t like his politics. That shouldn’t come into it. That has nothing to do with it. So the problem is with the person who wrote the story, not Mariano. Oh, I don’t like the person because I don’t like his politics. So he has to agree with you politically before he’s okay? That’s the litmus test he has to pass? He has to agree with you politically? Where is that written? When I look at an athlete’s performance, I don’t first say, ‘Tell me, is he a liberal or a conservative’ before I decide whether I like him or not, or I like his performance. How silly is that?”
Rivera, who is from Panama, and used a cardboard milk carton as a baseball glove until the age of 12, is perhaps baseball’s greatest relief pitcher of all-time. During his 19-year career, he recorded an MLB record 652 saves, was a 13-time All-Star and a five-time World Series champion. He’s also operated the Mariano Rivera Foundation for the past 19 years, which, according to their website, “Provide youth from impoverished families with an education that will empower them for the future.”
Francesa feels a player’s politics should have no bearing on how you view their career.
“Nobody realized Mariano was very conservative in his politics and he was a big Trump supporter. So what? What does that have to do with him getting in the Hall-of-Fame? Absolutely nothing.”