Probably Not The Best Idea To Follow Through With Jung Ho Kang Bobblehead Night, Pirates
Jung Ho Kang is a good baseball player. Good baseball players often have their own bobbleheads. Baseball teams often do giveaways with bobbleheads of good players on their team.
The Pittsburgh Pirates are having a Jung Ho Kang bobblehead giveaway. Jung Ho Kang is under investigation for sexual assault. The Pittsburgh Pirates are not cancelling or delaying their Jung Ho Kang bobblehead giveaway. Now, here in this country, you are innocent until proven guilty. That’s how it works in the American criminal justice system. However, I don’t think that’s how it should work in the American bobblehead distribution system. The alleged details against Kang are very, very bad.
According to police, the Chicago woman met Kang through Bumble, a location-based dating app that allows only women to initiate conversations. Kang invited the woman to his Magnificent Mile hotel room on June 17, hours after the Pirates had lost a day game to the Cubs.
The woman told investigators she arrived at Kang’s room at the Westin Hotel around 10 p.m. and he served her an alcoholic drink, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said. She said she blacked out about 15 to 20 minutes later, then drifted in and out of consciousness as he sexually assaulted her.
She told police she did not fully awaken until she was in a taxi and on her way home, according to Guglielmi.
The 23-year-old woman, who is not being identified because she is an alleged victim of a sex crime, went to Northwestern Memorial Hospital to have a rape kit done on June 19, Guglielmi said. She filed a formal complaint with police 10 days later, sources said.
I understand an organization waiting for one of their players to go through the legal process before distancing themselves from said player, but there’s a difference between taking a “wait and see” approach to this, and honoring a player who is under investigation for sexual assault, which is absolutely what giving him a bobblehead night is. Granted, the giveaway was announced before the incident allegedly occurred, and Kang has not been arrested or charged with a crime at this point, but it’s just a bad look for the Pirates, and it’s going to be even worse if these claims end up being true.
If you’re the Pirates, you have to look out for the Pirates, not Jung Ho Kang. It’s risk versus reward here. If you pull the plug on a bobblehead night, and Kang ends up being innocent, at the worst, all you’ve done is hurt a player’s feelings. If Kang is a reasonable guy, he can’t blame the Pirates for delaying or cancelling the bobblehead night in the first place, given how serious these allegations are. The Pirates have to protect themselves, and Kang should understand that.
If you go through with the bobblehead night, after publicly acknowledging that you were aware of allegations that were out there, and then these claims end up being true, that’s a tremendous black eye on the Pirates organization that I don’t think could ever be erased. However, if they’re proven to be false allegations, you can always have a bobblehead night another time. You can’t take back honoring a player who was convicted of sexual assault when you knew they might be convicted of sexual assault.