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Major League Baseball reliever Ryne Stanek just finished his ninth season in the bigs. He says that, due to the proliferation of sports betting these days, he has received more threats from fans than ever before.
He is just the latest in a growing list of Major League Baseball players to express their frustration and fear as it relates to fans and gambling.
“I get death threats all the time — every day,” Stanek recently told the New York Post. “It’s not anything that every baseball player doesn’t deal with all the time. Like, ‘You cost me my parlay, I hope your family dies.
“Gambling in baseball is doing nothing but making the day-to-day lives of players substantially worse. It’s just people that recklessly bet their money on just anything that they can, and if you mess up their bad life choice, you’re the problem and you should die.”
Baseball players and their family members receiving death threats is becoming far too common
Toronto Blue Jays’ rookie pitcher Trey Yesavage had an incredible postseason. Unfortunately, as he got ready to start the first game of the American League Championship Series, the 22-year-old felt he had to address the “hate” his family and those close to him had received.
Another rookie, New York Yankees pitcher Cam Schlittler, posted a message on social media addressing his family is being “attacked” after one of his postseason starts.
Also, this year, Francisco Lindor’s wife revealed death threats her husband had received. So did Carlos Rodon’s wife. Houston Astros starter Lance McCullers was also threatened by a fan who admitted it was related to a gambling loss. Liam Hendricks, who like McCullers was making a triumphant return from a long-term injury, also saw himself and his family receive death threats. And those are just the ones we know about.
The problem with fans making death threats due to gambling is not going away
A poll of Major League Baseball players revealed that 78.2 percent of them feel that legalized sports betting has negatively affected how fans treat them and their teammates. Things have gotten so bad for MLB players that the Minnesota Twins have a former Minneapolis police officer on staff who deals with the threats.
“It’s pretty common — definitely with pitchers,” the Twins’ director of security said. “Sadly, it is a postgame routine.”
Major League Baseball and sportsbooks may be putting a band-aid on the problem by implementing a nationwide $200 betting limit on wagers on individual pitches (because two players participated and have been arrested), but it will have little effect on fans making threats to players when one of them “causes” them to lose money.