A Red Sox pitcher said he and his wife are receiving “disgusting and vile” death threats.Liam Hendriks, a cancer survivor who just came back from a long-term injury, returned to the pitcher’s mound last month. The reliever has pitched in 11 games this season, struggling with a worse-than-league-average ERA of 5.56.During Wednesday’s game against the New York Mets, he yielded three runs in just 2/3 of an inning.He said he and his wife have been the targets of death threats on social media. In an Instagram post, he wrote, “Threats against my life and my wife’s life are horrible and cruel.” He also called comments bringing up his cancer “disgusting and vile,” and said, “Enough is enough.”Manager Alex Cora said he has also faced similar threats during his career. “People take it very seriously, you know. And people are irresponsible too, with the gambling part of it, and a decision, a pitch, a play probably puts them in a bad spot, and they take it personally. That’s not my fault, you know,” Cora said. “I mean, you have to be responsible in what you’re doing, you know, and that’s the way I see it. Obviously, my situation in the past was a big one, and that was one of the reasons, you know, I reach out to MLB security, because at one point, it wasn’t me. I always said, you know, it’s my family. You know, I put my family in a tough spot, but I got it, I got it back, you know, especially when the news came out, it was tough, it was dangerous, and we were afraid to be honest with you. And I think MLB security did an amazing job.”Hendriks also commented on the role of wagering. “With the rise of sports gambling, it’s gone a lot worse. Unfortunately, that tends to be what it ends up being, whether it be Venmo requests, whether it be, people telling you in their comments at it was like, hey, you blew my parlay,” he said. “And then it’s, ‘Go hang yourself, you should kill yourself, you should I wish you died from cancer.’ That one kind of hit a little little too close to home for me with everything I’ve gone through, so this is is one thing that, like, the more people need to talk out about this so we can get some sort of action, some sort of response and some sort of repercussions for the people doing it, whether they’re burner accounts, whether they’re real accounts. I mean, this is something that is deplorable and an active, like, there needs to be some sort of punishment so that people can think twice before they start doing this stuff.”When Hendriks was with the Chicago White Sox, the right-hander missed part of 2023 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and then needed Tommy John surgery after six appearances.The Red Sox signed him while he was recovering.
A Red Sox pitcher said he and his wife are receiving “disgusting and vile” death threats.
Liam Hendriks, a cancer survivor who just came back from a long-term injury, returned to the pitcher’s mound last month. The reliever has pitched in 11 games this season, struggling with a worse-than-league-average ERA of 5.56.
During Wednesday’s game against the New York Mets, he yielded three runs in just 2/3 of an inning.
He said he and his wife have been the targets of death threats on social media.
In an Instagram post, he wrote, “Threats against my life and my wife’s life are horrible and cruel.” He also called comments bringing up his cancer “disgusting and vile,” and said, “Enough is enough.”
Manager Alex Cora said he has also faced similar threats during his career.
“People take it very seriously, you know. And people are irresponsible too, with the gambling part of it, and a decision, a pitch, a play probably puts them in a bad spot, and they take it personally. That’s not my fault, you know,” Cora said. “I mean, you have to be responsible in what you’re doing, you know, and that’s the way I see it. Obviously, my situation in the past was a big one, and that was one of the reasons, you know, I reach out to MLB security, because at one point, it wasn’t me. I always said, you know, it’s my family. You know, I put my family in a tough spot, but I got it, I got it back, you know, especially when the news came out, it was tough, it was dangerous, and we were afraid to be honest with you. And I think MLB security did an amazing job.”
Hendriks also commented on the role of wagering.
“With the rise of sports gambling, it’s gone a lot worse. Unfortunately, that tends to be what it ends up being, whether it be Venmo requests, whether it be, people telling you in their comments at it was like, hey, you blew my parlay,” he said. “And then it’s, ‘Go hang yourself, you should kill yourself, you should I wish you died from cancer.’ That one kind of hit a little little too close to home for me with everything I’ve gone through, so this is is one thing that, like, the more people need to talk out about this so we can get some sort of action, some sort of response and some sort of repercussions for the people doing it, whether they’re burner accounts, whether they’re real accounts. I mean, this is something that is deplorable and an active, like, there needs to be some sort of punishment so that people can think twice before they start doing this stuff.”
When Hendriks was with the Chicago White Sox, the right-hander missed part of 2023 with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma and then needed Tommy John surgery after six appearances.
The Red Sox signed him while he was recovering.
