It wasn't on social media where Adam Eaton first learned he was suddenly engulfed in a social media storm, over comments he'd made to Washington City Paper last week about the pay scale of minor league ballplayers.
He learned he'd inadvertently crossed a slippery societal line from his agent, because Adam Eaton doesn't really do social media.
Eaton was enjoying one of three days off the Nationals have in the month of June.
"Does it ever surprise you how angry and how quickly the internet gets angry," Chad Dukes asked Eaton Tuesday on 106.7 The Fan. "Because it still takes me aback every once in a while."
"You know what's interesting is I have a very quiet household, and my phone is usually not around me," Eaton explained. "I don't really do the social media thing anymore. As a young player, I thought it was very beneficial, and then quickly as I got to the big leagues realized that it was not. The risk is not worth the reward, and there's no real benefit, there's no winning with it, so I got off of it."
"I do Instagram and I actually, I muted a bunch of words so I don't hear much," he said. "My agent texted me yesterday, he's like, 'Do you want me to get ahead of this?'
"And I was like, 'Ahead of what?'
"And he said that, you know, this, this and... I actually called him and I'm like, 'What are you talking about? I haven't heard anything.'"
As minor leaguers fight for better wages, a necessary cause that has rightly taken flight on social media, Eaton came through and served himself up as the dragon du jour to be slain that day. When sharing the story of his own personal journey as a 19th-round pick throughout the minor leagues, Eaton remarked that "struggle makes people tougher" and how increasing wages in the minors will spawn complacency.
In the original Washington City Paper article – which was published online last Thursday at 5 a.m. – Eaton's quotes, along with others', were used to portray the harsh conditions of minor league baseball. In it, you'll find this quote from Eaton admitting that minor league players are being exploited: "I don’t disagree with (the notion) that they're being exploited, but I think it’s for the betterment of everybody,” he adds. “I know it sounds crazy … I think there’s a middle ground … There’s ground to be made up, but I think it still should be rough."
You'll find a synopsis of Eaton's overall point: "While he believes things can be improved and players should make a little more money so they're 'literally not eating crumbs,' he doesn't want MLB to make minor league conditions more hospitable."
What you won't find are the four separate instances in which Eaton mentioned that minor leaguers do need to be paid more, just not at the expense of allowing complacency to set in.
Those quotes were revealed in the full transcript published by the City Paper on Monday, after the story had the entire weekend to blow up and garner headlines around the country.
Not that they would have changed the tenor of Eaton's message much, but if a scrupulous reader were looking for a reason to find a sympathetic quote from Eaton on the topic, they wouldn't have found it that day.
Along with improved wages for minor leaguers, Eaton also advocated for better facilities and better food. In his interview with The Fan on Tuesday, Eaton implored fans to "go and look at the entire interview." In full transparency, Eaton wasn't doing this interview as a matter of damage control. Tuesdays at 3:30 is when he joins Dukes every week throughout the 2019 Nationals season.
"I felt like, through hard times, pressure makes diamonds – all these cliches that we spew out all the time – that was what I took as the essence of your comments," Dukes told Eaton. "And I felt like they were a little misconstrued."
"No, I would agree with that," Eaton returned. "It's funny that last night, as I do prepare for most interviews, I was sitting and basically I was gonna kinda indulge in that. I feel like anybody that has gotten to a level of professionalism has, at some point, not been in the best-case scenario."
"I want people to go and look at the entire interview," Eaton continued. "Because on multiple occasions I said that the guys should get paid more, and the situation should be better, because they should be better. It's not great down there. The pay is bad. But again, I can only go from my own experiences, and my own experience was I was a 19th-round draft pick, like I said in the entire interview. I signed for $35,000.
"After that, I paid basically my college loans off and then my bank account just shrunk all the way through 2012 when I got to the big leagues. And for me, it was like, I've just gotta play better to hopefully make this happen or not make this happen. And that's basically what I was just trying to get across was, like you said, all the cliches and pressure and you basically need to back somebody into a corner and see what they have."
"The minor leagues was like that for me and now I have an appreciation for it," he said. "I really do. I think I wouldn't be where I am today without the pressure of not being able to financially support myself and years leading up to my debut."
Eaton, after playing three years of college ball at Miami, was selected by Arizona in the 19th round of the 2010 first-year player draft. He spent parts of two seasons in the minors before earning his first big-league promotion in 2012, but it wasn't until 2014 when he would remain in the majors full time. So he certainly spent enough time in the minors to get the lay of the land.
This time around, Eaton over-explained everything, in painstaking detail. Eaton even concedes that, in his City Paper interview, "I talked for too long, probably."
"Like I said, I can only talk from experience, and like I said, I want people to go back and look at the whole interview," Eaton told Dukes. "Because again, I do believe that they need to be paid more and I say it right then and there. The guy asked me a simple question: 'Do you think they should get paid more?' I said, 'Yes, they should get paid more.' And then he asked like with circumstances, I talk about the clubhouse.
"And he also left out in the notes that... I talked about the Washington Nationals and how important the food has been, and how the food is getting better in the minor leagues. You know when I rehabbed last year, I went on a whole spiel about how it is getting better and I appreciate their clubbies working hard. And like I said, this is a complete thing that he left out of that transcript."
"But like I said, I think they should get better," Eaton went on. "I don't think they should be in poverty. I don't think that there should be animals running around in the clubhouses in mildew and just not great circumstances. They should be taken care of. And again, I think anybody that knows me or has talked to me knows that that's what I believe in and guys should be taken care of. But again, like I said, I can only speak upon what I have experienced and what I have benefited from."
Eaton on Monday issued an apology for his remarks, on the one social media platform he still does use with some regularity: Instagram.
A post shared by Adam Eaton (@adam_eaton2) on Jun 24, 2019 at 10:55am PDT
After beating around the bush quite a bit, Eaton, certain he'd gotten his message out crystal clear, apologized again for his remarks last week.
"Again, if you read the interview, you understand that I have an angle that, again, that I appreciate what happened, I guess, the crappiness that happened in the minor leagues," he said. "I appreciate it because it wouldn't have gotten me to where I am. But again, if you read the whole article, you realize that again... it was a long... I talked for too long, probably, but, trying to talk this guy's ear off, but... I don't know where I'm going with this.
"But basically I have a very quiet household and I didn't quite hear it until later. And then once I got on Instagram, I wanted to apologize, because I don't want to offend anybody. I don't want to make anybody upset. That's the last thing I want to do. I just was again was pulling from my own experiences and what I think, like I said, the minor-leaguers are what run the big leagues."
"I always say it every time in spring training, you know it's not just 25 guys in the big leagues," he continued. "Our minor leagues have to be strong. They have to be ready to go. It's gonna take 35, 40, 50 guys throughout the season with injuries, and when you have a very strong minor league system, it's important, and it goes to pay and as well as making sure those guys are taken care of.
"And, like I said, I think anybody that knows me knows that that's what I believe in."
Listen to the full interview here. Follow @ChrisLingebach and @1067TheFan
