Does a genuine news article accurately report that baseball player Juan Soto joined the New York Mets partly due to the pro-Trump views of his former Yankees teammates? No, that's not true: Soto's agent, Scott Boras, told Lead Stories such stories were "falsely created," calling it "fake news." The social media post quoting such a supposed article offered no evidence.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here) on Reddit on December 12, 2024, under the title "Color me shocked." The post appeared to be a screenshot of a news article that said:
Soto's agent, Scott Boras, also touched on how the Dominican star was irked by several players' political views, particularly their support for Donald Trump. Before Game 3 of the World Series, Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe walked into the clubhouse donning Trump gear, finding it offensive to Latino Americans. '[We] found several comments at his Madison Square Garden rally very offensive,' agent Scott Boras said.
'To see his teammates condone that behavior certainly affected him.'
When Soto met Mets' superstar shortstop Francisco Lindor, he was much more comfortable with his views.
This is what the post looked like on Reddit at the time of writing:
(Source: Reddit screenshot taken on Fri Dec 13 14:25:36 2024 UTC)
Other people reposted it on social media platforms, including Fox News contributor Joe Concha, who shared the image on his X account (archived here). Concha did not include a source or link to the original source where the quotes supposedly came from:
Soto apparently was one of the few people actually offended by a comedian's joke at a Trump rally, and was also taken aback Judge and Volpe wore Trump gear. Snowflakes usually don't exist in baseball. pic.twitter.com/hkcy3fFLW1
-- Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) December 12, 2024
Lead Stories reached out to Soto's agent, Boras, for comment, and he responded via email on December 13, 2024:
Fake News. These statements are falsely created and I have never been asked or responded to subject matter of this nature.
An ESPN article (archived here) about Soto's $765 million deal with the Mets, the largest in sports history, details the negotiations between the player, his agent and the teams trying to sign him. Nowhere does it say that Soto was "irked" by his fellow Yankees Aaron Judge and Anthony Volpe for their support of President-elect Donald Trump. It would have been national and international news had these details been published.
The image posted on Reddit was formatted to appear as if it was taken from a genuine article, though Lead Stories did not find any related actual news report.
We searched key phrases from the post, including "Juan Soto's agent, Scott Boras, also touched on how the Dominican star was irked by several players' political views" (archived here) and "juan soto scott boras we found several comments at his Madison Square Garden rally very offensive," (archived here). The results yielded multiple news stories about Soto signing with the Mets and Boras brokering the deal. However, no results supported the quotes' authenticity. The results did return one article that also debunked the claim.
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Other Lead Stories fact checks related to sports can be read here.
