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Blue Jays' Pillar misses the boat with comments on possible slur
Kevin Pillar is well aware that he did something wrong on Wednesday night. The Toronto Blue Jays centre fielder yelled what seemed to be a homophobic slur at Atlanta Braves reliever Jason Motte, and it likely didn’t take long for him to realize he’d made a serious mistake.
However, there’s a difference between recognizing wrongdoing and understanding why it’s wrong. Without understanding the core of the problem there can be no true contrition — and that kind of contrition was noticeably absent from Pillar’s post-game comments on the incident.
MLB.com’s Gregor Chisholm transcribed what the outfielder said after an 8-4 loss to the Braves, and broken into small pieces it’s clear he missed the boat on making a meaningful apology.
Pillar’s start was strong enough, as he made no bones about the fact his conduct was uncalled for:
“Yeah, I mean, obviously that was the initial thing I was upset about but I think it just stems from a little frustration in myself and just the way this series has been going. It was immature, it was stupid, it was uncalled for. It’s part of the game, it’s just, I’m a competitive guy [in the] heat of the moment.
The “I’m a competitive guy” excuse is a bit dicey because so is everyone who’s made it to the major-league level and not all players have outbursts like the one Pillar displayed. Even so, frustration is inevitable in baseball — a game of failure — and raising the decibel level isn’t a crime. But the issue isn’t that he yelled, it’s what he yelled, and that’s where the pseudo apology goes off the rails a bit:
Obviously I’m going to do whatever I’ve got to do to reach out and apologize and let him know he didn’t do anything wrong, it was all me. Obviously something to learn from, something to move on from.
This where it becomes clear that Pillar doesn’t understand what the issue is. Saying what it seemed like he said isn’t just a problematic insult from one man to another — it represents a level of disrespect for a large subset of our society. It seems unlikely that Motte is deeply hurt by Pillar’s words — he probably interpreted them as a garden-variety immature outburst. The victims are Pillar’s fans who watched one of their heroes cavalierly use language that denigrates a group they belong to — and their pain isn’t acknowledged at all.
Saying this is “something to learn from” sounds positive, saying it’s “something to move on from” seems to undermine that thought. We won’t know which he’s more serious about for some time.
The final part of it is both a plea and an excuse:
Don’t let it define me but really I think it was just frustration from coming off a really good homestand and really just not even being in any of these ball games, just coming out flat and not being able to build on what we were able to build on against Seattle. That just all came out in that moment.
It’s understandable that Pillar doesn’t want this incident to define him, no one would. But it’s not up to him how he’s perceived by the outside world — his actions determine that. He put himself in this position with what he did and it will be reported on at length because he’s a public figure and homophobia is an important issue.
The final words pertain to his overarching explanation that frustration drove his outburst. That’s something that need not be said. Everyone knows this happened out of frustration, but that doesn’t exonerate it. No one is offended by the fact Pillar got angry, they are disappointed with where that anger took him.
More likely than not Pillar’s error was ignorant rather than malicious. But that ignorance persisted beyond the heat of the moment into the post-game interview. If Pillar is going to learn from this as he says he is, it needs to come to a halt.
