Mo'ne Davis Asks University to Reinstate Baseball Player Who Was Cut After Calling Her a 'slut'

13-year-old girl teaches America a valuable lesson about sticks and stones

Sports Illustrated

In this world of perpetual outrage at and cocooning from allegedly hurtful acts of speech, it may take a 13-year-old girl to introduce a long-overdue sense of proportion. Mo'ne Davis, the Little League superstar, Sports Illustrated cover girl, subject of a Spike Lee mini-doc, and the only reason my 6-year-old daughter ever watched more than 10 consecutive minutes of baseball on television, issued a startling act of forgiveness yesterday, asking the Bloomsburg University baseball team to reinstate the recently dismissed star baseball player Joey Casselberry.

What did Casselberry do to get bounced? This:

That's stupid even by baseball-player standards.

After Casselberry's predictable dismissal, SI's Sportskid of the Year sent Bloomsburg University President David Soltz an email:

While I admit I was pretty hurt when I read his comments, I felt sad that he was dismissed from the team….I am sure Joey Casselberry has worked very hard to get where he is and dreams of playing in the major leagues. For this reason, I'm asking you to please allow him back on the team so that he can continue to chase his dream. He made one dumb mistake. I'm sure he would go back and change it if he could.

Imagine that.

So did the university get Mo'ne's message? Nah—the school is "standing firm" in its decision.

Comments

[Fist of Etiquette]

I'll go one further. People should not be held accountable for what happens in the twittersphere.

[Pro Libertate]

The school can do what it wants, but I think it shows in this age of victimization how little it's about the victim when this sort of thing is ignored. Pretty impressive move on her part, it seems.

[Anarcissie]

In theory the ostensible, primary victim was not the only victim. The school, the league, the sport, the whole community were degraded. Calling someone like Mo'ne Davis a slut in a public forum really is beyond the pale. Casselberry of course had the right to call her a slut, and everybody else has the right to treat him as a malign fool, which in this case means he doesn't get to be a superstar any more. It seems reasonable to me, not some excess of outragism.

[Grand Moff Serious Man]

Mo'ne can't be expected to understand the evil power of words. She's 13 and probably hasn't taken classes on race and privilege and intersectionality yet.

Snark aside, I am shocked they gave the player such severe punishment. Unless he has a history of saying stupid shit or behavioral issues and this is just the last straw.

[sarcasmic]

Zero tolerance means zero judgement.

[MoreFreedom]

Good one sarcasmic!

[Pope Jimbo]

The victim is too perfect. No way as the school PR flack you want to be answering questions about why you are still letting a kid play for your team after he maligned a:

1) kid
2) girl
3) african american
4) sportwoman

No way. Imagine the questions. It is so much easier to cut his dumb ass. Sure it wrecks his life, but it saves you from any discomfort.

p.s. If this girl manages to get crippled in a car accident and come out as a lesbian she will be set for life as the perfect HR candidate.

[Dweebston]

Are you, though? Davis became something of a national cause celebre for a minute or two. I'm certain Bloomsburg U felt the prickly heat of the country's collective wrath on his brow long before the phones started ringing.

[Pope Jimbo]

Well she's no Jackie Anderson

I'm actually proud of myself today. I've been slowly weaning myself from more and more sports over the years. I had no idea who this gal was.

I still don't understand the tweet. Did her team play some Nevada team?

[Apatheist ?_??]

Yeah her little league team lost to the Nevada one in the semifinals. It had the highest tv ratings ever (it was just after she pitched a shutout).

[Dark Lord of the Cis]

" That's stupid even by baseball-player standards."

Really Matt? John Smoltz once burned his chest trying to iron a shirt he was already wearing. George Brett once took his pants down on national TV. And John Kruk... exist. We will never reach peek baseball stupidity.

[Matt Welch]

If you mention "George Brett" and "pants" in the same sentence without talking about the Las Vegas incident....

[Slammer]

When's the last time you shit your pants? Been awhile?

[Sudden]

Stop ragging on George Brett just because the Royals swept your Angels of Anaheim.

[Matt Welch]

Ragging on Brett? That's some aspirational shit I was referring to.

I never hated Brett even back when the Royals were a consistently good team. Bought the Charlie Lau book, based my left-handed swing on him.

[WTF]

My most vivid memory of Brett was when the umpire called him out after he hit a home run against the Yankees because of too much pine tar on his bat. He showed me what the word "conniption" means.

[Real American]

you're thinking of Steve Lyons in the pants incident

[Rasilio]

And he did it Twice

[BDub]

Well I guess its kind of like Peak-oil crisis - every time we think we've reached the peak, the technology comes along to extract more than we need. Twitter is the Fracking of stupidity.

[Paul.]

I just had a thought, is there any way we could get cops to be held to the super-high standards university students are held?

[Enjoy Every Sandwich]

The young lady is displaying maturity and class. This must be stopped! Quick! Into the Progmobile!

[sarcasmic]

Nah?the school is "standing firm" in its decision.

Of course they are. To go back on their decision would mean admitting to a mistake, and rule number one of Authority is to never ever admit to being wrong, especially when you know you're wrong.

[some guy]

Admitting you're wrong when you're right can be okay because it might lead to a new oppressed-victim status.

[Fist of Etiquette]

This is why women shouldn't be allowed in sports. Would a male student athlete be dismissed for smack talking another male student athlete? I ask you. Maybe he would. I don't actually know. But my original point still stands. Plus their breasts get in the way of their golf swing.

[MJGreen]

But they have good fundamentals.

[Real American]

Bloomsburg University is a public university and thus bound by the restrictions of the First Amendment. It cannot punish students for the content of their speech, which it has blatantly done here. Will these PC Fascists ever learn?

[mad libertarian guy]

Will these PC Fascists ever learn?

No.

[PM]

Getting BTFO by a 13 year old girl should be punishment enough.

[AlmightyJB]

Low class. Meet high class.

[Robert]

Took me, like, forever to parse that headline the way it was intended. I thought the university called a baseball player a slut, figured it was a student at the university. Then I saw the subheading & thought it must've been some precocious 13 YO to be in college & playing baseball there.

Editors, there's no shortage of newsprint online. The page is as long as you want to make it (until our browsers bomb). Why do headlines still need to be that telegraphic? Yeah, I get that the eye scans only so much at a time, but still.... Try this:

College Baseball Star calls Little Leaguer "Slut", Gets Canned
"Slut" Asks College to Reinstate Insult-Maker

[Bones]

That's it?! To hear Mike Greenberg explain this yesterday (he refused to quote the offensive tweet on air saying it's something you can't say on the air, yet you most certainly can), you'd think Casselberry called for her to be murdered and raped by a diseased Klansmen. He said one bad word and not even in the context that it's most hurtful. That basically boils it down to her being one of the guys, only with different terminology. I say this is a good thing. He trash talked. And she took the high road and didn't trash talk back. End of story.

[Bones]

Are the 6 retweeters going to get kicked out of school, too? How about the 9 people that favorited it?

[LIBERATEDXZOMBIE]

If the headlines don't fit with bloggers' prejudices, they will write about any nonsense!

[jay_dubya]

This is a university president here, people. We cant reasonably expect him to have the maturity of a 13 year old girl, can we?