New York Yankees pitcher Nestor Cortes Jr. is in hot water for some old social media posts which use racial slurs.
Cortes deleted his account — at least momentarily — in response to a fan digging up his old social media posts. Many contained rap lyrics with the N-word, and likely occurred when Cortes was in college.
The social media posts, linked here, were found just after Cortes took over the American League lead in ERA for the season.
Cortes has been one of the best stories in baseball so far this season. Seen as an afterthought in the Yankees rotation, Cortes has instead been their most consistent starter, even beating out ace Gerrit Cole for that title through mid-May.
Yankees: What to make of Nestor Cortes’ old tweets?
It’s not my place to tell anyone how to feel about racial epithets. Surely Cortes will have some response in the coming days. The simple reality about being a successful professional athlete is that all parts of your life will be under a microscope. Nothing goes left unnoticed, even from the distant past.
Cortes was merely 18 or 19 when he made the choice to post these tweets. By deleting them from Twitter entirely, Cortes is acknowledging his mistake. Hopefully, some form of an apology comes with that, and we continue to focus on his on-field product.