David Wells won’t back down.
The former Yankees great joined “Don’t @ Me” with Dan Dakich on the OutKick network earlier this week and was asked if he’s still getting backlash for his recent comments ripping Nike and Bud Light.
“No, not really, I only go to social media from time to time, and it just depends on my mood swings,” Wells said.
“If I’m feeling a little sassy I go on there and start talking some crap, but you know what? It’s my beliefs. I don’t believe in all these companies coming into sports and trying to create a woke atmosphere, especially with Nike, with all their slave labor that they’re doing over there in China.”
Wells said he saw former NBA player Enes Freedom last weekend at Frank Siller’s T2T charity golf outing at Liberty National Golf Course.
“He says it well: ‘You can’t play this woke stuff and bring it into sports and then have everybody do it,’” Wells said.
“That’s why when [Colin] Kaepernick took the knee, it’s a little disrespect to me, because I’m a patriot. I support our military. I come from a military town in San Diego. You can’t do things like that. Your beliefs are your beliefs. I don’t have any problem with that. But don’t go out on national TV and take a knee for what that is. That doesn’t prove anything in my mind. It proves that you’re an idiot and that you’re standing up for a cause. When the anthem’s there, you’re in America, you do the anthem, you do the Pledge of Allegiance. That’s what you do. That’s what we were taught in elementary school. Put your hand over your heart and say the Pledge of Allegiance.”
Wells pitched in MLB from 1987 to 2007, playing for the Yankees in two different stints that included their legendary 1998 team.
Wells said that protests like Kaepernick’s weren’t fair to the younger generation of kids who idolize athletes and urged them to “do your due diligence and figure out what you’re gonna protest for, but don’t protest our flag and our military.”
Dakich asked Wells if he would be outspoken if he were an active player today.
“Absolutely, guaranteed contracts are there for a reason,” Wells said.
“If you get a guaranteed contract and you’re making 5-10-40 million a year, I’d be speaking up like no other. What are they gonna do? If they trade you or release you, you’re getting that money.”
Wells drew a distinction between protesting between the lines of sporting events and taking stances on one’s personal time.
“You have the right — that’s what our First Amendment is for — to speak your mind. You do have to watch what you say from time to time, but if you feel strongly about something go ahead and support it. If your organization wants to criticize for you, there’s other organizations,” Wells said.
“All these guys that are protesting, they’re standing up for what they believe in, but don’t do it in sports. Keep it on the side. Go to Twitter, but don’t do it on the field where everyone can see it.”
Wells said that he played in Single-A in Kingston, N.C. in 1983, when it was “still a segregated town”.
“It blew my mind,” Wells said.
“I didn’t really understand it, and I didn’t like it because my teammates were on the other side of the track, and we were over here, and there was a guy that owned a restaurant right in the middle of the line, and we all met there. We had dinners, lunches so we could all hang out as a team.
“You see that, and it didn’t really resonate with me then, and then now today, you’ve got two sides. You’ve got all these organizations. You’ve got all this crap going on. Our whole world is divided. To me, in sports it’s a team thing. You win and you lose together but you try to find out each others’ loyalty as a teammate. You can pick friends after the season.
“You don’t have to like your teammates, but you root for them, and you do that during the season. And then these companies come in and they’re promoting a different message. Our message is to go out there and make the fans happy, because there’s a lot of fans that love our sports, so let them go out there and enjoy it and take the politics out of it.”
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