There is no place for this, especially when staff representing a sports franchise perpetrates it.
The late Steve Irwin was well known for his TV show and his passion as an animal rights activist. He died a gruesome death, stabbed in the heart by a stingray.
Courtesy: steveirwinday.org
Unfortunately, his death also brought out the worst in people, including an ill-conceived and inappropriate episode of South Park, which aired a month after Irwin’s death in 2006. The episode, “Hell on Earth,’ is about Satan hosting a dress-up Halloween party. Irwin is turned away because he’s not dressed appropriately. But the scene shows Irwin with a stingray barb sticking out of his chest.
Sadly, mocking Irwin is back in the news this month as part of a Twitter exchange between baseball’s Miami Marlins and the Tampa Bay Rays. At the end of the exchange, the Marlins tweeted, “You’re literally the animal that killed Steve Irwin! Log off!”
While thousands of fans liked and retweeted the statement, the Marlins’ management took a different tack–apologizing. “This was a regrettable exchange by our otherwise creative social media team,” the Marlins tweeted. “Unfortunately, in this medium, sometimes we swing and miss, and this was definitely a miss.”
That response came after a number of fans took offense at the original tweet. “Really, really low” and “in bad taste” were two of those responses.
Courtesy: Deadspin and The Bleacher Report
To make matters worse, this wasn’t the first time Irwin was disrespected by one of the teams. In 2013, it was the Rays turn to be indiscreet. A fan brought an inappropriate sign to Tropicana Field (see right), which ‘Raymond Ray’ (the team’s mascot) held up for the cameras.
What’s the moral of these stories? There is no time, and there is no place for this kind of behavior.
