DAVID HARSANYI: Unlike His Critics, Former New York Yankees Closer Mariano Rivera Is A Mensch. “The Hall of Fame pitcher supports a pluralistic nation with democratic institutions and free association.”
In a transcendently ridiculous column at The Daily Beast, readers are warned that MLB Hall of Famer Mariano Rivera has “served at the pleasure of a racist president, taken part in thinly veiled propaganda on behalf of a far-right government in Israel, and gotten chummy with outright bigots and apocalyptic loons.”
Mo Rivera? The greatest closer—perhaps the greatest pitcher—in Major League baseball history? Mo Rivera, the first player unanimously selected as a first-ballot Hall of Famer? As a longtime Yankees fan, and someone fortunate enough to see Rivera up close for a number of years, I can think of few greater pleasures in sports than watching him work. So I never thought I’d be able to admire him more. But here we are.
It’s not surprising that The Daily Beast, whose editor-in-chief blames Israeli Jews for white nationalism, would find Rivera’s support of Israel problematic (the original illustration for the piece, incidentally, had Rivera standing on a pitcher’s mound shaped like a yarmulke atop a Jewish star).
Come see the antisemitism inherent in the leftism.