After standing up for his teammate following a bout of online bullying, Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Alek Manoah has been awarded Dove Men+Care’s first ‘sponsorship for sportsmanship.' Of the interaction, Manoah said he 'meant it from the heart.'
“I want to sincerely apologize to Alejandro Kirk, Alek Manoah, the Toronto Blue Jays, Jays fans and anyone else offended by my initial tweet,” he said.In an interview with CTV News Toronto Tuesday, Manoah said he meant what he said “from the heart.”
“There’s a lot of trolls out there,” Manoah said. “But the biggest thing I saw with that negative tweet was that it was from a verified account [..] He obviously has a voice that people listen to and I didn’t agree with how he was using his platform to bring negativity to one of our players.”“He’s a great teammate, and he inspires a lot of people to want to be great.”"My bond with him is pretty close and we both know that," he said.
“It’s very hard to get to this stage [in the MLB], so why are we going to throw extra negative connotations on kids when it’s already hard enough?” When asked what he hoped fans would take from all this, Manoah said he hopes they never let negativity hold them back.“There’s going to be a lot of negative people, a lot of people that try to put you down, but continue to follow your dreams and work hard, as long as you love what you do.”
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