Bogaerts Refreshing Integrity

(AP photo)
Eric D. Schabell
Contributing Writer

In this day and age where every sport hero we idolize seems to have this inherent built in ability to deny everything they do wrong, it is refreshing to see one take responsibility for his actions.

This is what the 21 year old shortstop for the Boston Red Sox, Xander Bogaerts did yesterday after a provocative tweet appeared on his timeline.

In a sports era where Alex Rodriguez attacked everyone and anyone to avoid stepping forward to take responsibility for his actions.

In a sport where Ryan Braun shows young people everywhere how you should never admit to any wrong while attacking your boss, fellow players, and public opinion.

Is that how you grew up?

Is that just bad advice from slippery, slimy legal teams that these players allow to control their images?

It does not have to be that way, as the next generation of ballplayers is showing us.

Xander Bogaerts is human, for whatever reason that an image of a young lady appeared in his twitter feed, it was something he did not really intend on doing.

His reaction was swift after he got a call from a friend to warn him about the tweet.

He did not claim his cell phone was stolen or hacked, he stepped up admitted his mistake and apologized.

"It definitely wasn’t my intention," Bogaerts said Thursday. "Once I found out it was on Twitter, I went immediately and deleted it and locked my Twitter account. One thing's for sure, I don’t want it to be a distraction on the team or for me. Hopefully my focus can just stay on baseball.

"The thing is, I don’t even tweet at all. I think my last tweet was probably last year. For me to do a tweet like that was something very unexpected, definitely."

"I mean, no one's perfect," he said. "Be a man and just face the situation. As I said, once I found out, I just took it down. I didn’t even know it was on there."

He did not try to say his cell phone was stolen or hacked, but took responsibility.

Red Sox manager John Farrell said he had a chat with Bogaerts on Thursday and was proud of the way he handled it.

Can someone check if A-Rod and Ryan Braun were taking notes on how to handle oneself in the face of adversity?

Post a comment or via twitter @ericschabell with your thoughts.

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