Former Giants first baseman Aubry Huff found himself at the center of a controversy last weekend, after sending out two tweets praising President Donald Trump, and saying that those protesting his executive order banning travel from seven majority-Muslim countries should get a job.
(via SFGate)
Huff was blasted by a number of prominent people on Twitter for his comments, and sparred with those opposed to his viewpoints before eventually deleting the Tweets. Huff joined Gary and Larry on Wednesday morning to clear the air, and explained that while he regrets the way he went about things, he is standing by his beliefs.
“Listen, I’m all for freedom of speech,” Huff began. “I’m all for people’s right to protest, people fought for our rights to do so. But do I not have the rights to speak out against people that are protesting against something I don’t believe in as well? I just kind’ve got upset when protestors are getting in the way of people trying to fly out of airports. They’re marching in the street where people can’t get to where they want to go.”
“That’s where I have problems, when you’re protesting and you’re getting in the way of the American citizens getting to where they want to go, causing problems in the streets. There’s a way to do it, a time and a place, but when you’re interrupting people going about their daily lives, that’s where I have a problem.”
Huff claims that the nature of his responses had to do with being used to a locker room environment, where players frequently go at each other with “sarcastically witted” comments.
“I want to make something clear, when I went out to apologize for the things I said, I’m standing behind what I believe in,” Huff continued. “I did apologize for the nasty responses I did send out on Twitter, that’s what I was responding to. I got childish. In my defense all these years playing baseball, you kind’ve develop a sarcastically witted, kind of locker room type banter, and that’s where I went in that moment with all the people on Twitter that were firing back. I apologize for those childish responses, but not what I believe.”
All of this is taking place in the midst of Huff promoting his new book, “Baseball Junkie: The Rise, Fall and Redemption of a World Series Champion,” being released Wednesday. When asked about whether or not this incident is going to help book sales, Huff seemed to imply it might.
“I’m not gonna say it’s great, I’m not gonna say it’s bad. I will say this, bad publicity is good publicity.”
“I did not write baseball junkie for the money,” Huff said. “I wrote it to inspire people that went through the same things I went through with anxiety, depression, addictions, and I want people to understand the underlying meanings of the end of the book, when you read it you’ll understand. If you don’t want to buy my book I’m completely fine with that, it’s no skin off my back. But if you do great. It’s a free country. You have the right to protest, I have the right to my opinion. You got to do what you’ve got to do, it’s not going to hurt my feelings one bit.”
“Like I said, I don’t really feel like I did a whole heck of a lot wrong with the exception of firing back on people with my childish responses. My opinion is my opinion.”
Listen to the full interview below.