WTVT Sparks Criticism with Baseball Tweet

By Mark Joyella 

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WTVT, the Fox-owned station in Tampa, deleted a tweet about the departure of Tampa Bay Rays pitcher David Price for Detroit. The tweet, which mocked Detroit as an urban ruin compared to Tampa Bay’s beautiful beaches, was roundly knocked. Yahoo Sports writer David Brown described the effort at comedy as “shameful”:

Not original or funny, just mean-spirited and misleading. In fact, St. Petersburg, Fla., (where the Rays play) doesn’t compare as well to Detroit as Fox 13 might think when it comes to crime. And if you’ve ever actually been to Detroit, and interacted with the people who work and live there, you’d never consider hurting their feelings like this.

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Sports Illustrated called the joke “awful”–“Ha! Poverty! Hilarious!”–and questioned the sincerity of the station’s apology, which came in meme form. SI said that “doesn’t really convey sincerity.”

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