Justin Verlander Addressed Social Media Haters After Going to Dinner with Kate Upton

Why any professional athlete would maintain a presence on social media is beyond my level of comprehension. More often than not, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Believe me. This is coming from someone whose livelihood is paid for in part by when athletes say or do something stupid in 140 characters or less.

That takes us to Justin Verlander. Disclaimer: I am a Tigers fan but my personal fan allegiance really doesn’t matter here.

First, a couple facts. Verlander is on the disabled list with a triceps issue suffered late in Spring Training. The former MVP downplayed the injury, but he’s yet to play this season. He went for an MRI on Tuesday, but the team hasn’t announced it. Although he’s on the DL, Verlander is traveling with the team. (This post from Wednesday morning could be perceived as Verlander received the green light to start throwing again.)

The Tigers won in Kansas City on Sunday and traveled to Chicago, where they had an off-day on Monday.

Verlander proceeded to commit the mortal sin of a) going out to dinner in Chicago b) going out to dinner with his famous girlfriend (Kate Upton) and c) posting some of those pictures on Instagram. Honestly, HOW DARE a 32-year-old making $28 million do something like that. HOW DARE HE!

Naturally, because he’s injured, some fans got mad at Verlander under the logic he should be doing rehab on his arm 24/7.

Verlander, in turn, returned volley at the haters with this Instagram post (note the words and hashtags):

This became enough of an issue that reporters asked him about it on Tuesday prior to the Tigers 5-2 loss to the White Sox. From the Detroit News:

"“That’s how I feel,” Verlander said, with an irked grin. “These comments — what do you want? “It’s social media, and people with a negative voice speak out, while positive people go about their business. “It was interesting,” he said of non-specific comments from his restless fan base. “But that’s what social media is, or what it should be: entertaining.”"

If you’re someone in the spotlight such as Verlander, social media is basically a no-win situation. You could make a statement such as, “mosquitoes are the worst” and some anonymous person would likely attack you — if only for the fleeting euphoria being a hater brings — or get outraged by such a comment. At least Verlander managed to laugh it off, mostly.

Interactions like this remind us that and social media, often, tends to be an unrelentingly toxic place making one think we all would have been better off if Al Gore never invented the Internet. Haters gonna hate.