Jonathan Papelbon and Stephen A. Smith will probably never be exchanging Christmas cards.
The former Boston Red Sox closer turned Foul Territory co-host called out the longtime ESPN personality, labeling him as “racist” and “shady.” That somehow stemmed from Smith’s original commentary about Mike Trout being hurt too often. Smith responded by telling Papelbon that he was not only a liar, but Smith could “sue his a**.”
Cooler heads seemed to have prevailed on both sides of the aisle, as the traded barbs between those two seemed to stop there. But recently, Papelbon joined NESN’s Tom Caron and Alex Speier on their 310 To Left podcast to talk about his feud with Smith. And to no one’s surprise, the fire wasn’t quite out. While discussing the initial disagreement, Papelbon revealed a new target for his frustrations.
“Here’s the thing, though, don’t talk s**t on our game,” he said. “And don’t try to say this bulls**t or this and that when you don’t really know…I want what’s good for the game, so I like this Paul Skenes guy. I’m more excited about this kid than ever because our game needs this. I find it crazy that (Shohei) Ohtani didn’t know about the money, but that’s old news; we need him. This is great for our game, and that is all that I want. I feel like I took enough from the game, so now I can give it back and make it as good as I can.”
Is the hatchet buried between Papelbon and Smith?
“I don’t know, man. To me, and to be totally honest with you, the other guy — ‘Mad Dog’ (Chris Russo) — pissed me off a little bit even more,” Papelbon added. “Because he’s a baseball guy. Like, dude, have a backbone. Stand up for the game that you’ve been covering for 40 years or whatever you want to act like. So when he said that, I was like, ‘C’mon man, you should’ve rebutted him and told him he was an idiot.’ But he just kind of let him go, and I don’t know how much he’s getting paid. Mad Dog pissed me off too. I got nothing for him anymore.”
So it appears that Papelbon’s feud with Smith has now turned into one with Russo.
We’ll have to see if Russo responds. He, like his First Take counterpart, often doesn’t take too kindly to these types of callouts.
[NESN]
