Dodgers Fans HATE Him and He Loves It

Welcome you over 140,000 awesome supporters of the channel and the 67% who haven't subscribed yet. For those who aren't familiar with Josh Reddick, he's a now retired major league outfielder who was a part of some special teams throughout his career. After a few seasons in Boston, the team he was drafted by, Reddick was traded to Oakland and became a big part of their magical run in 2012, having a really good year in the process. He continued to be with the A's and be pretty productive for them until he was traded to the Dodgers in 2016. He had a great first half of but didn't perform at all in the second half as a Dodger, and this was the beginning of the biggest rivalry in baseball, Josh Reddick and Dodgers fans. He was just bad in the short time he was a Dodger, so I don't think anyone in LA cared when Reddick, who was just a rental for the team that year, left and signed a 4-year contract with the Astros and free agency. In fact, they were likely happy he did, with Reddick going on the record in 2017 that he got booed at Dodger Stadium a lot while playing there, and beating them in the World Series was going to feel really good for him personally. So Dodgers fans didn't like him very much, but Reddick was still loved by A's fans for what he did for that team. In very impressive fashion though, in a way nobody saw coming, Josh would end up making the A's fans who loved him now hate him, and Dodgers fans who just kinda didn't like him before, hate him. And it of course started in 2017. So Reddick joins Houston and becomes a part of the start of their insane run, winning the World Series in 2017, winning 103 more games with the team in 2018, and then another pennant in 2019. And before the cheating scandal even broke out, A's fans started to get angry with Reddick. After a close game between the Astros and A's in Oakland, a game that the A's won, Reddick made some comments to reporters after the game that pissed off A's fans, saying that playing meaningful games in that ballpark doesn't come around a whole lot. He knew how angry this made the fans, because he tried to clarify that he meant that the Astros hadn't played very meaningful baseball games against Oakland at the Coliseum. And whether that was true or not, if that's really what he meant or whatever, A's fans were still angry, booing him in the next game, with Reddick then taking to Twitter to release a statement about the whole thing, telling everyone that he did not bash the A's fans and never would do such a thing. Well, any A's fan that may have accepted his apology was back to hating him in 2020 anyway, when it was revealed to the world that the Astros illegally stole signs and cheated during the 2017 season, the one they won the World Series in, and a team Reddick of course was on and played a big part of. Ironically, Reddick by far had the best season of his career in 2017, so you'd automatically jump to him participating in the cheating and taking the hints on what pitches were coming, and make that the reason why he had such a good year that stood out. But when you look at the data on SignStealingScandal.com and what players had the most trashcan bangs or whatever, Reddick is on the very bottom of the list, even below Jose Altuve, who is pretty widely known as someone who didn't participate in the cheating. And in fact, Reddick even replied to a tweet from reporter Buster Olney mentioning a quote from another Astros player that year, Carlos Beltran, talking about how Tony Kemp didn't use the trashcan system. And Reddick responded to this by saying, Jose Altuve and Josh Reddick can be added to that list of not using it as well. So he was outspoken about not having those trashcan bangs as much, and well, I don't know. We won't ever know for sure the truth behind everything there, but regardless, Reddick was still part of that cheating Astros team that got caught, and he has only become one of the more hated people from that team, especially with Dodger fans. Reddick has definitely been someone who hasn't fully ever taken responsibility for what the Astros did in 2017. Even if he didn't fully cheat that year or cheat as much as his other teammates, he could at least just do his small part in apologizing and admitting the team was wrong. If he did that, he wouldn't be hated, at least not as much. It's like the steroid users. What steroid users are talked about the most? The ones who admitted that they effed up and were wrong and stupid? Or the ones who lied about it? Obviously the ones who lied about it. I don't think anyone hates any player who decided to be open about themselves taking steroids and being wrong about it. Because whoever does that pretty quickly gets forgotten by the public and the fans when it comes to the controversy, with everyone paying more attention to the ones who denied it, and lied about it, in some cases even after they were caught. So same goes for Reddick. If he said something like, okay me and the team collectively were wrong for cheating, we shouldn't have done it, I apologize and we'll move on from this in the best way possible, I honestly think he'd be pretty irrelevant, so maybe that's why he's the total opposite. Maybe that's why he's gone out of his way to only point fingers and straight up say he has zero remorse or regret about the cheating that team did. Back in 2021, Reddick had a Q&A on Twitter, and a fan decided to ask him if he has any regrets about 2017, to which Reddick responded with, zero. Now again, did Reddick himself cheat? All the signs point toward no, but either way, he was a part of a team that was proven to have cheated that year, and will forever have a championship that isn't looked at as legitimately as every other championship a team has won. And that's just a fact, whether you emphasize with the Astros or you hate them. And again, this is the kind of thing that keeps Reddick relevant, I think, but in a very negative light. In every opportunity Reddick has had to not necessarily fix anything because he can't, but to at least make things better by letting others know the Astros were wrong, he has refused to do it, and instead just points fingers, deflects, and avoids any admitting of the team being wrong. Right when the scandal dropped back in early 2020, Josh Reddick said that he didn't feel like he needed to apologize to friends on other teams for what happened, and the reason for this? Quote on quote, because I just don't think it's necessary. He was also quoted as saying that at some point, you have to move on and not give a ----, we're going to go out there and win and shut everybody up. And when a fan trolled him on Twitter by calling him a cheater, Reddick responded with a picture of his ring. So, that's how he was then, that's how he was a year and a half later when he made the zero regret comment, and in the current day, almost in 2024, Reddick still feels the same, but only more bitter, and has continued to full-on embrace being the villain to Dodgers fans and just to fans in general. Last offseason, when Cody Bellinger signed a one-year contract with the Cubs for Reddick had the most unnecessary take, maybe ever? He tweeted out, Bellinger was of course a rookie in 2017 when the Dodgers lost to Reddick's Astros, and someone who was very outspoken against the team when the scandal broke out, so I'm sure that has at least something to do with Reddick throwing shots here. But at the same time, it comes across as so salty and bitter over really nothing. Was Cody Bellinger coming off of two terrible seasons when he got that one-year Cubs deal? Yes, but it's pretty simple why he got $17.5 million. He was a really good player in his first three seasons, won the MVP in 2019, he clearly has potential to get back to that, so the Cubs were willing to pay up a little more for one year, and well, what do you know, it worked out, because Bellinger ended up having a really good year with the Cubs in 2023, and meanwhile, Josh Reddick's been retired for like two years. He was just genuinely hating on another player making money, and it also comes across as jealous. So there's that, and then all the times and opportunities he's taken to be hated by Dodger fans even more than he already was. In 2020, he mocked Dodger fans by saying he expected more of and from them when the Astros played there that summer. Even though the pandemic was going on, some fans still showed up to boo the Astros and hold up signs or whatever, and Reddick said he thought there'd be more. In 2022, in arguments with fans on Twitter, Reddick then accused the Dodgers of cheating, and when asked what proof he had of that, he said that he was there, going on to say that there was plenty of proof, he just wasn't a snitch. So this whole Twitter battle is going on, and that's when another player joined in and contributed to the conversation, but not in support of Reddick. It was Scott Van Slyke, another former Dodger player who played there all six years of his career, which included when Reddick did, quote tweeting a fan and saying, no cheating when I was a Dodger. I went and looked up the last few tweets Josh Reddick has and he's just straight up trashing their fans. I think your Dodger neighbor messed with the tacos, I've had some bowel issues, no idiot, I got booed my first ever home game as a Dodger. Typical clueless reply from a Dodger fan. And then there's the most recent Josh Reddick take, and it's about another contract. So he threw ---- at Cody Bellinger's Cubs one year deal, and just looked incredibly bitter and angry while doing it. Bellinger was a Dodger, leaving for the Cubs for that contract. But now we have Reddick criticizing a player joining the Dodgers on a big contract. Josh Reddick tweeted out, how do you give a guy $325 million without ever throwing a pitch in Major League Baseball? He's of course referring to Yoshinobu Yamamoto, the 25 year old Japanese pitcher who has insanely high expectations and just signed for that much money over 12 years with the team. Now I will say that of all the things Josh Reddick has said that comes across as salty, this one is at least somewhat of a valid take. Yamamoto hasn't ever thrown a pitch in the big leagues, so there may be a little higher of a risk to giving him that much money when he's not quite as proven despite being so nasty. So it's a valid argument, at least somewhat, even if Yamamoto is expected to be just fine in the big leagues. It still makes Reddick look bitter though, especially when this isn't the first time he's complained about stuff like this on Twitter. So with that context, even if the Yamamoto take is a valid question, it still just seems like Reddick is looking to get a rise out of Dodger fans. To now throw shade at their new star pitcher? I mean at this point he wants to never be allowed in LA. He wants there to be wanted posters with his face on it around that city. He just continues to dig this hole deeper for himself but he also seems to enjoy doing it. He has fully embraced the hate he gets from Dodger fans. He wants to be their villain. And in an exchange with a fan responding to that Yamamoto tweet calling him arrogant for not apologizing like other Astros players did, Reddick yet again took this opportunity to not make amends but just to point more fingers and say that nobody apologized to him for anything. He also agreed with another fan that baseball is ruined because of the Yamamoto contract and I assume from what the Dodgers have done overall this whole offseason spending well over a billion dollars. But again, overall, Reddick just seems like an incredibly bitter retired player. I mean everything he says implies that he's sitting at home punching his couch just angry at the world but he only did this to himself. He could have apologized and move on but I guess it doesn't help when that was really the last noteworthy season Reddick ever had. It's actually an interesting concept to think about because for any player that has 2017 as their final big year, they may be hated forever. Worse, a guy like Carlos Correa, who was hated a ton, is now on the Twins and helping them out. He separated himself from the Astros and the whole cheating thing more than Reddick ever did or seemingly ever will. Same goes for a guy like George Springer. He's been a Blue Jay for a few years now and has moved on from the whole thing. After 2017, Reddick was a terrible hitter. His hitting was below average every year, and he retired on a very lame note. So he's now remembered as 2017 being the last he really did anything. Meanwhile, Correa and Springer have years left and more of an opportunity to build their reputations back up, if that makes sense. So in that sense, it's unavoidable for Josh Reddick. He was older and not nearly as talented as the other Astros players, so 2017 is the last we really remember of his playing days. But he could at the very least apologize and move on. But he has refused to do that for almost 4 years now and just continues to rub Dodger fans the wrong way. It truly seems like he just wants to be hated by them. And well, he's getting what he wants. Let me know what you think, thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next video.