Dodgers: Julio Urias Gives a Master Class in How to Deal With Trolls
Sports fandom can bring out the worst in people. Emotions are high, anonymity is easy, and inhibitions are often lowered by alcohol. As a result, you often find sports fans doing and saying things they wouldn’t do at the office on a Thursday afternoon.
Sometimes, that includes hurling personal insults at players on the field. In Jorge Castillo’s masterful longform piece on Julio Urias in Friday’s Los Angeles Times, there’s a story about one such incident in San Diego and how Urias showed everyone exactly how to deal with moronic trolls.
Urias, of course, was born with a bad left eye, with a benign tumor that puts pressure on the eye and has required about a dozen surgeries over the course of Julio’s life. Some Padres fans decided to poke fun at Julio’s eye, and … well, let’s let Jorge Castillo tell you.
Last season, Julio said, a group of Mexican fans taunted him while he warmed up before a game in San Diego. They started with the usual banter. You stink. You’re no good. They’re going to kill you.
“Thank you,” Julio responded. “We’ll see a little later. The game hasn’t started.”
Then one of the men mocked his eye, striking a nerve. Julio turned around.
“I gave it to your team in the playoffs last year and I have a ring,” Julio said. “You guys don’t have anything. And that was with one eye. Imagine if I had two.”
The response, Julio remembered, silenced the group. It’s one reason why he doesn’t use social media anymore. Why, he reasons, open the door to negativity?
The only thing that could have made this response better is if Julio had ended by quoting Will Ferrell in The Other Guys.
There are plenty of good reasons to not be an a-hole at the stadium. We can add one more to the list: you might be schooled by Julio Urias.
Have you subscribed to our YouTube Channel yet? Subscribe and hit that notification bell to stay up to date on all the latest Dodgers news, rumors, interviews, live streams, and more!
