One day after Red Sox reliever Liam Hendriks suffered a loss, the reliever took to social media on Thursday to decry what he described as “threats against my wife and my wife’s life” as well as “comments telling me to commit suicide and how you wish I died from cancer.”
Hendriks delivered his message as an Instagram story: “Threats against my life and my wife’s life are horrible and cruel. You need help. Leaving comments telling me to commit suicide and how you wish I died from cancer is disgusting and vile. Maybe you should reevaluate your life’s purpose before hiding behind a screen attacking players and their families. Whether you do it from your ‘fake accounts’ or are dumb enough to do it from your real account. I think I speak for all players who have had to deal with this in their career when I say enough is enough.”
The Red Sox expressed their frustration with the online behavior experienced by Hendriks and other players.
“This season, we’ve had frequent conversations with many players about the online harassment directed at them,” read a team statement. “At Fenway Park, we have a clear code of conduct, and we hold people to that standard … Online, accountability is harder to enforce but the standard should remain the same. When personal and unacceptable commentary happens online, we block and report abusive accounts, work with MLB cybersecurity, and, in more serious cases, involve law enforcement.
“Baseball is built on respect for the game, for one another, and for the communities it brings together. That’s a standard we’ll continue to uphold, both in person and online.”
Hendriks, 36, was treated for non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2022 and 2023, returned to the big leagues in the middle of the 2023 season But after just five appearances, he tore his ulnar collateral ligament and required Tommy John surgery that sidelined him for the remainder of that year and all of 2024.
He returned to the big leagues this April, and on Wednesday, he voiced frustration with the frequency and circumstances of his usage, suggesting he hoped to be employed in higher-leverage situations.
“It’s actually a source of contention that I’ve had with [the team] and I’ve had multiple conversations about,” Hendriks said on Wednesday afternoon. “The more I pitch, the better I get. If the theory is you want the best me, throw me.”
Hours later, Hendriks entered a 1-1 game against the Mets with one out in the sixth inning. He struck out both batters in the sixth, but allowed three consecutive hits to open the seventh inning, and got pulled by manager Alex Cora with the bases loaded and no outs. All three runners scored and were charged to Hendriks, who absorbed the loss while his ERA rose to 5.56.
“At the end of the day, I’ve got to reward them by throwing [like] me, getting guys out,” Hendriks said after the outing. “And if I’m not doing that, then I don’t deserve to pitch.”
Players typically understand that fan criticism comes with the territory but are increasingly disturbed by unconscionable responses.
Jarren Duran, in the Netflix documentary “The Clubhouse,” said fan criticism amplified his mental health struggles and contributed to a spiral that led him to attempt suicide during the 2022 season. In April, a fan during a Red Sox-Guardians game in Cleveland was ejected for inappropriate remarks to Duran related to that incident.
“I think that’s the thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that, when everyone else has a bad day at work, no one else sees it, but when we have a bad day at work, millions of people tell us how bad we are,” reliever Garrett Whitlock said in April. “I’ve had beer thrown at me, been spit on, all that kind of stuff. You get treated like less than a human.
“It’s one of those things where, [Duran] being open hopefully sheds some light on the subject of, ‘Hey guys, we’re still people, too.’ I get we’re in the spotlight, but it’s one of those things where I feel like it’s important for athletes to open up about the mental struggle and about showing people that we’re still human. We’re humans. Everything that everyone else has felt and everything that everyone else has gone through, we’re going through the same things.”
Alex Speier can be reached at alex.speier@globe.com. Follow him @alexspeier.
