Mike Fiers revealed he has been receiving death threats since exposing the Houston Astros' cheating scandal, one of the worst scandals in Major League Baseball history.
The 34-year-old pitcher who spoke out about the team's scheme that entailed using a camera to steal catchers' signs to pitchers and relaying the information to hitters by banging on a trashcan is shrugging it off.
"Whatever, I don't care. I've dealt with a lot of death threats before. It's just another thing on my plate," he told the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday. His concern is for his family, which is why lawyers are taking note of all threats lodged against him.
Fiers' current team, the Oakland Athletics, and Major League Baseball have expressed concern for Fiers' safety. The league vowed to "take every possible step" to ensure that he was protected "wherever he's playing."
Fiers however, said he was not asking for extra security.
"I'm here to play baseball and I can defend myself, if anything," he said, according to the Daily Mail. "We do have National League games and I'm going to have to get into the box [to hit] just like everybody else."
As for backlash from the Astross, Fiers is not too concerned about that either.
"If I'm worried about any retaliation, I'm not going to be ready for the season," he told the Chronicle.
Astros fans have argued that Fiers benefited from the scheme as he was part of the 2017 World Series team at the time and have called for him to return his World Series Ring.
He told the Chronicle that he has no intention of doing that unless the rest of the team from the 2017 series did so too.
"I said from the beginning, 'I'm not away from this. I was part of that team, I was one of those guys,'" he said, adding that he was "willing to take as much punishment as they do."
Meanwhile, a host of Major League Baseball stars have blasted the Astros, many saying they should be stripped of their 2017 World Series championship. None of the players were disciplined because they were given immunity by MLB commissioner Rob Manfred during his investigation.
It's all added up to what some see as the biggest scandal in the sport's history, with opposing players furious not only at what the team did but their players' half-hearted apologies.
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Zoe Papadakis ✉
Zoe Papadakis is a Newsmax writer based in South Africa with two decades of experience specializing in media and entertainment. She has been in the news industry as a reporter, writer and editor for newspapers, magazine and websites.
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