Ke'Bryan Hayes Must Be Brought to Justice

On Tuesday night, as the pitiful Pirates set themselves up to lose yet another game, rookie Ke’Bryan Hayes hit a home run off Dodger starter Walker Buehler and trotted the bases in celebration. After he crossed home plate, after the cheering stopped, it was found out Hayes didn’t step on first base during his trot and he was called out for such a boneheaded move.

Hayes’s whiff is a genuine boner, a real bozo play. But inherently that’s all it is. A mistake. Players make small mistakes every game and big mistakes probably ten or so times a season, it’s how you remember they’re human. Each one is bad and not something you want to repeat but that’s about as far as you want to go with something like that. Hayes knows you’re supposed to touch first base, he didn’t just assume the rules had been cancelled or that he was special. Unfortunately, for some in the Pittsburgh media, that isn’t a good enough conclusion to the story.

The Pirates held Hayes out of meeting with the media for some reason or another, maybe it was so he didn’t have to answer these questions or maybe he had a team obligation. Maybe he asked to stay out because he was embarrassed and didn’t want to talk about it. In any case, who cares?

The necessity of press conferences and media availability with athletes has been the hot button issue lately. Naomi Osaka famously removed herself from the French Open just last month over it, igniting a debate on whether or not any of it was worthwhile anymore.

Now, there’s a lot to be said for not allowing famous people to control the narrative at all times. This is true in politics where decisions impact lives and corruption can ruin them, this is also true in athletics. College sports were long able to dictate the terms of how much their program interacted with media which led to institutional corruption, discrimination, and protection of criminal behavior. Journalism is valuable because of the moments where those things can’t hide anymore, those moments are built in the mundane coverage we take for granted.

This isn’t a Grand Defense of Journalism though. When it comes to Kevin Gorman and this particular temper tantrum with Ke’Bryan Hayes missing a base, what does it mean with “accountability”? Who is holding Hayes accountable? The media isn’t, the media can’t! The media’s job isn’t to hold anyone accountable for their actions. It’s to report! The fans? What’re they holding Hayes accountable for? How are they holding him accountable? Does he have to buy a first base bag for each fan that was sad the home run didn’t count? Does he have to give us $10?

Accountability is a dead concept, for the most part. Mostly because powerful people have learned to manipulate every narrative and timeline into a “debate” so that they are allowed to hang on throughout each controversy. But also because people like Gorman throw it around the room like a beach ball when it comes to forcing Ke’Bryan Hayes onto a zoom call.

The media has failed just about every test they have had in the last 20 years so it’s only a little jarring to see them continue to take themselves as seriously as they do. Here’s a couple other reporters talking about Hayes not being available after the game.

Embarrassing? Censorship? Wannabe? Again, there’s that A word.

Just who the fuck do these people think they are?

There’s no accountability to be held here. Unless you truly, outlandishly, believe Hayes missed first base on purpose in a conspiracy or you believe his answer of “uhh well I forgot to hit first base” is a necessity for the healing process to begin. Who the hell needs to be held accountable and for what?

To accuse the Pirates of censorship here is even more preposterous. Censoring what? The play happened! Hayes was called out! The runs didn’t score! What are they censoring, that they lost? It’s in the official MLB record book! Again, are you accusing the Pirates of intentionally losing? That they sent some kind of signal to Hayes to miss first on purpose so the runs didn’t count?

This feels like it might be a little self serving!

In reality, where we all live, does anyone actually give a shit what Ke’Bryan Hayes has to say about it? Is there anything nuanced he can add that we haven’t already put together in our brain? He didn’t look for the bag, he missed it, he blew it. That’s the ENTIRE story. A 12 word quote of Hayes saying “I didn’t look for the bag, I missed it, I blew it.” isn’t going to win you a Pulitzer prize. There is no grand story here. There is Hayes making a boner and you asking how he felt after he made that boner. Which, quite frankly, isn’t that necessary to understanding anything.

It’s also a little funny that these grandiose accusations of censorship or meltdowns about accountability aren’t ever directed at Pirates owner Bob Nutting when he cuts the team to the postholes and forces the city of Pittsburgh to watch the worst team in baseball for five years (or longer!). There’s no wailing demands that the Pirates explain further how they “can’t afford” things like good players, certainly no posts diving into why the Pirates continually watch players succeed after they leave, no concerns of censorship when Bob Nutting refuses to answer any questions around finances. It’s only players that bear the brunt of journalist’s ire, only athletes that must be “held accountable”.

Media’s failure isn’t in a lack of work ethic or sudden shift in moral code, it’s in this stuck up belief that athletes owe them something that power refuses to give them. They’ve accepted that owners can tell them no, because owners hold power to revoke access and cause drama, so they fight grandiose battles for the fabric of journalism against the athletes that have less leverage. They use the language they learned in media ethics and communication law classes about the necessity of their jobs in the wrong places. You’re not being censored when Ke’Bryan Hayes can’t give you a quote about a botched home run trot, but you are when an owner tells you that he won’t answer any questions on the revenue streams of the team.

Part of the problem with media today is that it is so whiny. Blue checks whined for 5 years about the “behavior” of Bernie Sanders supporters on Twitter. As though fifty random people replying “shut da hell up” to their stupid tweets was a worse attack on the fourth estate than rich guys buying the building that houses a newspaper and jacking up the rent 5x. This is in the same line of thinking. Hayes has no power over why the Pirates are bad, he’s a rookie with just under 100 career plate appearances. He didn’t make the decision to trade Austin Meadows, Gerrit Cole, Tyler Glasnow, Jameson Taillon, and others for nothing of value in return. Journalists are calling for accountability here because they THINK fans want to bemoan the players for being bad, but what did the players have to do with removing talent from the field in Pittsburgh? The Pirates players weren’t acquired to be good, they were acquired to save a billionaire money.

The discussion on whether or not journalists are entitled access to players is a different one, but it’s tough to say they deserve to ask questions so long as they continue to ask the wrong ones. What do we gain from a Hayes quote? How does it help further accountability? Why aren’t you asking yourself these questions if you’re a member of the media?

Again, journalism is not in the business of holding people accountable, they are simply a step on that process. So, even if you believe Hayes needs to be held accountable it is not Kevin Gorman’s job to do that. In fact, pretty strong argument here Ke’Bryan was held accountable WHEN THE HOME RUN HE HIT NO LONGER COUNTED.

Eventually, Hayes did have media availability and he was Justly Held Accountable.

Ladies and Gentlemen, we got him.

This has been talkin’ accountability.