Sam Darnold, Adam Thielen, Jason Heyward and all the other anti-vax pro athletes deserve to be booed
I’m gonna be a dick today, because that’s a personal choice. It’s the middle of June and the COVID-19 vaccine is available (and free!) to anyone in the United States over the age of 12. This is a miracle. If you’re fully vaccinated like I am, you can throw parties now. You can travel. You can eat out. You don’t have to quarantine at home, counting toilet paper rolls and making hatch marks on your bedroom wall and wondering when you’ll be free of this bloody pandemic. It’s over for you. You won. You could even celebrate by going to a baseball game! But oh s—t, wait just a moment …
All my curses get dashed out at this website, which is fine. I knew that was the policy when I decided to work here, and I have no beef with it. But I’m gonna start swearing now, and unfortunately it’s gonna be up to you to decipher what letters are missing.
F—k. S—t. Motherf—ker. G-d s—t assholes. Sm*ter—udge. G!bbit. H1$$—job.
Florb.
There are people out there who have legitimate reasons to not get vaccinated. Some are severely immunocompromised in ways that don’t allow for the shot to work as intended. Or they grew up poor within an American system that exploited them for so long that they can’t take any authority figures at their word, not even the CDC. Or the vaccine isn’t as widely available where they live as it is elsewhere, and they don’t know how to get it. Or they’re genuinely uninformed about the vaccine’s efficacy and simply need to be given the correct information, preferably by a trusted loved one. Or they’re British rock legends. I’m aware of all the above and I’m willing to respect those reasons.
But you know who can’t cite any of those reasons? Pro athletes. Like Sam Darnold. And Darnold’s New York Jets replacement Zach Wilson. And Montez Sweat of the Washington Football Team. And Christian McCaffrey. And Kirk Cousins and Harrison Smith and Adam Thielen of the Vikings, the latter of whom missed a game last season after a COVID scare. And a dude on the Mariners who tested positive for the ‘rona last month. Getting COVID in May of 2021 is like buying an Aerosmith album in May of 2021: What’s the point? I haven’t even gotten to LeBron James, who’s out of the playoffs but is still the foremost role model athlete in the country. Trying to figure out if LeBron got the jab is like attempting to translate signals from f—king outer space.
I should not be getting vaccinated before any of these pro athletes have. I don’t even mean that on moral terms. I mean that players like LeBron should have had access — and should have WANTED access — to the Pfizer jab before it was even properly sequenced. But I, a random loser to passersby, became fully immunized two months ago, well before many professional athletes did, if they ever will. There’s no logistical reason for this to have been the case. We’re talking about people who have likely had the ability to get vaxxed since New Year’s, if not sooner. We’re also talking about people whose livelihoods depend on good health, and who will normally ingest any vial of clear liquid within eyeshot to keep their asses off the injury report.
And yet I have to hear Harrison Smith say, “Just like everybody else, make your own decision.” I have to hear Sweat tell reporters he needs “more facts” before he decides, as if there isn’t already an entire apparatus of team doctors, union reps and government officials who are HAPPY to supply him with the pertinent information and have already done so. Politely. NFL Players Association Executive Director DeMaurice Smith said, “We’ve urged them to just make sure that they just make a decision that’s informed.” Coach Ron Rivera of the Washington Football Team said, “It’s a choice. They’ve got to make a choice.” Everyone has adopted the anti-vaxxer bulls—t lingo of freedom and personal choices to make players like Sweat feel like they aren’t being attacked for not doing their part and getting the needle.
Has coddling them worked? No. And do you know why? Because these athletes SUCK. They don’t want any more information. They have it. Everyone does. According to NBC News, “The overwhelming majority of sick (COVID) patients in recent months” have been unvaccinated Americans. According to the Washington Post, infections are dropping where vaccination rates are the highest, which should come as no surprise to anyone but apparently Adam Thielen.
If this were a sport, the vaccinated people would be the San Francisco Giants and the unvaccinated people would be a beer league team. If you’re anti-vax simply because you don’t believe in it, you are wrong and stupid and dangerous. You don’t want more information. You don’t want facts. You hate facts. You hate other people and prefer to express that hatred through a form of belligerent apathy.
And none of us ACTUALLY respects your decision. We hold it in complete and utter contempt. I got a 9-year-old who still can’t show his face in crowded places because of these idiot stragglers. It’s one thing for some random MAGA dickhead to be among these stragglers. It’s a whole other thing for a high-profile athlete like Darnold to not only shun the vaccine but to publicly cast doubt upon its already proven efficacy. YOU ASSHOLES ARE SLOWING EVERYTHING DOWN.
I never side with management on anything when it comes to pro sports disputes, but in this case teams and leagues are doing their best to get players jabbed without explicitly forcing them to do so. MLB teams that are at least 85% vaccinated get relaxed COVID protocols. Same deal for the NBA. And if you’re an NFL player, you won’t have to endure ANY COVID protocols this coming season if you’re fully vaccinated. Look at the differences here!
These incentives are no small thing when you consider that players had to spend the bulk of last year playing in bubbles, traveling in split parties, quarantining, practicing over Zoom, being tested constantly, and risking their lives for a paycheck. The idea that they would shun a cure for all that may be predictable in my idiot homeland, but that doesn’t make it any less repulsive. I have no interest in being polite to these athletes this late in the game, and neither should anyone around them. Bucs coach Bruce Arians went into Cool Uncle Mode just last week to make it plain:
Do I have any faith that the Bucs’ holdouts will listen to this man? Not really. The remaining unvaccinated athletes are all lost causes, and they deserve to be booed for it. Shamed. Ridiculed. They’re scum. They’re cops. They’re also bad teammates, given that one bad test or contact tracing fiasco could put them out of commission for weeks at a time and cost their team precious victories. And for what? NOTHING.
So boo them. Call them names. Get personal from the bleachers. Hold up a giant copy of your vaccination card to taunt them with. Let them understand that there are earned consequences for being so negligent. For endangering everyone around you and then having the naked gall to act like it’s some sacred private decision you just made.
Well here’s a private decision I just made: I invite you to kiss my naked, disease-free ass.
More Drew Magary
*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from SFGate can be found here ***
