I have one personal message I would like to deliver to Daniel Murphy, second baseman for the New York Mets…
Congratulations.
See, New York media. It’s that easy.
I’m sure he’s incredibly proud to be a new father, as he and his wife gave birth to their son, Noah, in Florida shortly after noon on Monday — which also happened to be Opening Day. It was expected for Murphy to miss the game that day, however many must have expected the professional ballplayer to return to his team immediately, instead of staying behind in Florida to take care of his wife.
New York sports radio — WFAN, in particular, turned what should have been a celebratory topic into a heinous outcry against Murphy’s decision to stay away from his team for an extra day — even though federal law allows a two week paternity leave for any employee.
First, the biggest goober in sports media, Mike Francesa, who states that all this paternity nonsense must have originated from “natural childbirth”:
Then Boomer and Carton weigh in, with Esiason saying he would have recommended his wife have a C-section before Opening Day.
Stay classy.
Yankees media just hating a cross-town team on a slow news day? Possibly.
Murphy, who is returning to the Mets lineup Thursday isn’t letting the talk bother him.
“I got a couple of text messages about it, so I’m not going to sit here and lie and say I didn’t hear about it,” Murphy said about the on-air criticism from WFAN Radio of his decision. “But that’s the awesome part about being blessed, about being a parent, is you get that choice. My wife and I discussed it, and we felt the best thing for our family was for me to try to stay for an extra day — that being Wednesday — due to the fact that she can’t travel for two weeks.
The guy took off two games to help take care of his wife after the birth of their child. He missed the first two of 162 games. There are still 160 games left to play. I think everything will be okay. Or even in a more facetious, but yet truthful, tone, call me when the Mets when the pennant this year.
Again, to Murph and his lovely wife — congratulations.
Josh Helmuth is the editor of CraveOnline Sports. — @JHelmuth — CraveOnline Sports on Facebook.
