Toronto Blue Jays pitcher under fire once again for viral popcorn incident
Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Anthony Bass is at the centre of controversy after publicly complaining about his wife having to clean up after their own children on an airplane. But Bass is now showing off his sense of humour by trolling the (thousands of) people who have called him things like "entitled" and "privileged."
The image of two small children seated on a commercial airliner among a debris field of popcorn, and the expectation by the pitcher that flight crews should clean up after his family, made news across the continent since it was posted Sunday, even appearing on international outlets.
The flight attendant @united just made my 22 week pregnant wife traveling with a 5 year old and 2 year old get on her hands and knees to pick up the popcorn mess by my youngest daughter. Are you kidding me?!?! pic.twitter.com/vLYyLyJC54
— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 16, 2023
Bass appeared to have resolved the issue with United Airlines internally, and the heat over his comments was just beginning to die down when the relief pitcher decided to stoke the flames by poking fun at critics.
On Monday evening, Bass shared a photo of his young daughter with a family-size bag of Skinny Pop popcorn, captioned with a lone popcorn emoji.
— Anthony Bass (@AnthonyBass52) April 17, 2023
The self-aware joke wasn't met with the warmest of receptions, reigniting criticism of Bass.
Notice he's using a closed bag here because he knows if she spills a few pieces, he'll have to go to the exhausting trouble of calling someone else to drive over and pick it up.
— Billy Givens (@mektige) April 18, 2023
One commenter calls out the pitcher for attempting to make light of a situation where he tried to have workers fired for not cleaning up after his family.
You literally tried to have someone fired from their career over popcorn. Leave your kids out of this.
— John Mincone (@JMincone) April 18, 2023
Several comments accuse Bass of hiding behind his kids to shield himself from the fallout of the situation.
Propping your kids up like this to deflect the negativity surrounding you after your tone deaf tweet is both sad and embarrassing. Have some sort of decency. Yikes.
— Andrew Hickey 🤯 (@andrewmhickey) April 18, 2023
Popular baseball analysis channel Jomboy Media even dug up a perfectly-worded clip on Bass on the mound, as just about every voice in the baseball world piles on in criticism of the pitcher.
"Anthony Bass on to try and clean it up" pic.twitter.com/QoUXnrDe6W
— Jomboy Media (@JomboyMedia) April 18, 2023
The Toronto Blue Jays will continue their road trip Tuesday evening versus the Houston Astros. With basically the entire baseball world aware of Bass' Twitter gaffe, it should be interesting to see how fans react if and when he appears next on the mound.
Anthony Bass
