Zebulon Sneed Has a Problem with Yordano Ventura

After game six of the World Series, Kansas City Royals farmhand Zebulon Sneed tweeted some insensitive and frankly jingoistic comments about Yordano Ventura’s tribute to Oscar Taveras.

This story comes to us by way of Derek Harvey at Brew Crew Ball who laid it out nicely over there.

Sneed, whose brother Cy is in the Brewers farm system, took issue with Ventura’s display of the Dominican flag. Both Ventura and the recently passed Taveras are Dominican.

Sneed continued from there:

Cy, Zeb’s brother, retweeted his brother’s comments without commentary of his own. We understand that RT’s aren’t necessarily and endorsement, but it isn’t hard to believe that he shares his brother’s views on the subject. Major League baseball goes out of its way to trumpet its ties to the US military and throw unabashed patriotism around the field whenever it gets a chance. It isn’t surprising then to see a minor league player have this kind of reaction to a player from another nation supporting his home country, instead of baseball’s home base. To his credit, Zeb sort of apologized for his comments this morning. After I’m sure somebody pointed out just how racist he sounded.

Being a patriot doesn’t absolve you of a knee-jerk reaction to dislike anything that is from outside of our borders. Sneeds comments don’t rise to the level of Luke Scott tossing plantain chips at a teammate for acting like “a savage” (his words), but they are still disturbing to see from a professional athlete.