First Call: Flyers social media mishap; Steelers lose data analyst; ex-Pirate is All-Star MVP

There surely have been more than a few instances of Zoom calls originating in Western Pennsylvania that have included the words “Flyers (stink)” and another word that begins with the same letter. But Tuesday, it happened on a call staged by Philadelphia Flyers employees themselves.

During a live stream of a virtual conference call with Philadelphia media and veteran forward Garnet Hathaway, audio came through from Flyers social-media staffers who arranged and facilitated the call. And after at one point a reporter asked Hathaway a question about why an accomplished player such as he would sign with a clearly-rebuilding team like the Flyers, a voice is heard saying, “How many times is she going to ask this (bleeping) question?” Another voice, sarcastically in agreement, can be heard saying what sounds like, “Yeah, the Flyers (stink), why are you even watching?”

While the Flyers apparently took down the post rather quickly, of course in social media nothing is erased, so the exchange made its rounds — to the hilarity of many fans of other teams who dislike the Flyers.

The Flyers ultimately responded with a Twitter post of a statement attributed to new team president of hockey operations Keith Jones apologizing for the “disrespectful remarks” and saying the team reached out to the reporter and her media outlet.

“Any disrespect towards reporters is completely unacceptable, especially when they are simply doing their job,” the statement read, in part. “…(the Flyers) will continue to promote an environment of mutual respect when working with media.”

Forgotten Pirate

The Pirates have had their issues getting offense from the catcher position this season. Just think if they had an All-Star catcher who, say, had 77 hits that were tied for third-most of any catcher across MLB this season — a guy who homered during Tuesday’s All-Star game.

Elias Diaz’s two-run homer off Felix Bautista in the top of the eighth inning Tuesday night was the key hit in the National League’s 3-2 victory against the AL in Seattle.

Diaz indeed was a Pirates catcher — up until 2019. The team’s primary catcher that season, Diaz was the first regular from that team discarded by then-new general manager Ben Cherington. Though Cherington had designated for assignment a handful of fringe pitchers days after he was announced as the Pirates’ baseball operations head on Nov. 15, the first starting position player let go was Diaz, whom Cherington declined to tender a contract to on Dec. 2, 2019, making him a free agent.

Diaz’s non-tender was not without its logic — after all, he ranked dead last in all of the majors at any position in defensive runs saved in 2019 (minus-21). And it’s not as if Diaz has become a star with the Colorado Rockies (he has 38 home runs and a .720 OPS over 317 games). But no one can take away from Diaz that he earned an MVP award in an All-Star game.