Chipper Jones , the retired Atlanta Braves star, has apologized for coming across like a Sandy Hook “truther” on social media by suggesting that the FBI had confirmed that the massacre was a hoax.
During the Sandy Hook shooting rampage in Newtown, Connecticut on December 14, 2012, 20 children and six adults were murdered at the school by gunman Adam Lanza, who then committed suicide.
In a very ill-advised tweet Friday evening that came out of left field, as it were, and that is now deleted, Jones, 42, said “So the FBI comes out and confirms that Sandy Hook was a hoax! Where’s the outrage? What else are we being lied to about?…”
As you might expect, screenshots and retweets of the original tweet, of course, still exist all over the internet.
Jones has 446,0000 followers on Twitter, so his Sandy Hook is a hoax tweet prompted social media outrage, including a response from Cristina Hassinger, daughter of murdered Sandy Hook principal Dawn Hochsprung.
“Conspiracy theorists believe the shooting was an elaborate hoax, staged by the U.S. government to help build support for restrictive gun control legislation,” the Sporting News observed about the so-called Sandy Hook truther movement.
“It’s hard to comprehend the level of stupid it would take to post something like that, but Jones has said some pretty strange things in the past,” NBC Sports opined in reference to the ex-player’s Twitter feed.
Yesterday afternoon, however, Chipper Jones apparently came to his senses and said he was sorry for going full-on truther via social media.
Jones tweeted an apology that admitted his original message was irresponsible. He added that he relied on “credible” information from another source without doing his own research.
Third baseman Chipper Jones, who retired from professional baseball in 2012, earned $168 million over his 19-year MLB career. A switch-hitter who spent his entire MLB tenure with the Braves, Chipper Jones has a lifetime.303 batting average with 468 home runs, 2,726 hits, and 1,623 RBI, the most runs batted in for a third basemen. To date, he is the only big league switch hitter to bat.300 and hit 400 or more home runs. He is considered a lock for the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.
In 2013, rumors emerged that Chipper Jones was supposedly considering coming out of retirement to play for the then-injury-riddled New York Yankees, but he ultimately decided to stay retired.
Seems Chipper won’t need a Braves hat for his HOF bust, but a tinfoil one… pic.twitter.com/uXLT0hRgYX
— Dave Southorn (@davesouthorn) February 7, 2015
. @RealCJ10 Come for dinner. You can meet my grandmother-less children and I’ll show you my mom’s clothes riddled with bullet holes.
— cristina hassinger (@chass63) February 7, 2015
My apologies for my Sandy Hook tweet yest. I had heard something from someone which I thought to be credible and tweeted w/out researching.
— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) February 7, 2015
It was irresponsible of me to do that and will not happen again. Please accept my heartfelt apology to those who were hurt or offended.
— Chipper Jones (@RealCJ10) February 7, 2015
[Image credit: djh57 ]
