Mets prospect acquired in R.A. Dickey trade tweets anti-gay slur

Noah Syndergaard, a top pitching prospect the New York Mets acquired in a trade from the Toronto Blue Jays this week for Cy Young knuckleballer R.A. Dickey, presumably tweeted and deleted an anti-gay slur earlier this month. The questionable communique was brought to the attention of New York Daily News reporter Andy Martino, who wrote about it Tuesday:

UPDATE: The kid says he's sorry. Acceptance pending, pal.

Twenty-year-olds say reprehensible stuff all of the time — worse than that, and more mean-spirited. Heck, so do 40-year-olds. And 60-year-olds. Inside and out of baseball. For inside, look no further than former Jays player Yunel Escobar, who wrote an anti-gay slur on his eye black this past season. That kind of language in the major leagues probably won't change ever, at least not for generations.

Yes, it would be nice, going forward, if the Mets could train Syndergaard to think twice before using such potentially hurtful words. But that's secondary. What really must come of this is the wisdom to not say anything like that on Twitter, or anywhere the public might hear you and turn it into a thing.

Some of this goes back to being 20 years old and doing stupid stuff, but any 20-year-old who was a first-round pick of a Major League Baseball team and has a Twitter account should know that anything he says on there can and will be used against him in the court of public opinion. And there's no such thing as delete on the Internet.

Noah Syndergaard knows it now, or soon will, after the inquisition by the New York media. Good luck, youngster!

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