Tuesday night, Jose Reyes stepped into the batter's box at Citi Field, the home of the New York Mets. Reyes, who had played for the Mets from 2003-2011, returned to the team under questionable circumstances. He was released by the Colorado Rockies after receiving a suspension described as “soft” for allegedly assaulting his wife in 2015. He was subsequently signed by the Mets. Here's how the Citi Field crowd reacted to Reyes' introduction on Tuesday:
On Wednesday, it was announced that former South African Olympian Oscar Pistorius was sentenced to six years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in 2013. South Africa's mandatory minimum for first-time offenders is 15 years, but according to the BBC, "Judge Thokozile Masipa said mitigating circumstances, such as rehabilitation and remorse, outweighed aggravating factors."
These events come a month after the controversial sentencing of Brock Turner, a Stanford University swimmer who was convicted of sexually assaulting an unconscious woman. Turner received six months' of jail time, which many argued was far too little for such a serious crime.
While athletes are constantly scrutinized for their performance on the field, a dangerous pattern seems to have emerged of giving them the benefit of the doubt off of it. Sports can give people hope and serve as an escape from the stresses of everyday life, but that is no reason to treat an athlete less harshly than any other ordinary citizen when they assault another human being.
In Reyes' case, the charges were dropped, as his wife refused to testify against him. However, her injuries and her account of what happened that night in Hawaii are too grim to ignore. According to reports, "His wife told police that Reyes grabbed her by the throat and shoved her into a glass door that led to the balcony in their room at the Four Seasons Resort Maui at Wailea. [...] His wife suffered injuries to her thigh, neck and wrist and was taken to a hospital."
While Major League Baseball did suspend Reyes, the 52-game ban is light compared to punishments given for drug use. According to the MLB Joint Drug Prevention and Treatment Program, the MLB punishes drug users with an 80-game suspension for first offenses involving performance-enhancing drugs and between a 25-50-game suspension for using stimulants, DHEA, or other drugs
The Pistorius sentencing comes after a series of twists and turns in the story of the amputee sprinter. After he served a year for charges of manslaughter, the conviction was upped to murder by an appeals court in December. However, Masipa, who also made the original manslaughter conviction (which also was deemed too light by many), sided with the defense and granted Pistorius a severely reduced sentence.
A spokeswoman for the Women's League of the African National Conference did not mince words in her statement on the trial, calling Masipa "an embarrassment to the justice system" and the sentence "an insult to women in this country."
In the wake of Turner's trial, seeing Reyes return to play and Pistorius receive a reduced sentence appear only to confirm the outcries from those infuriated with the swimmer's minimal punishment. Rich athletes do not suffer the same consequences as others, eluding serious indictment due to their status as heroes or celebrities. Doesn't this set a poor example for young athletes, teaching them that bad behavior will go unpunished, or at least not as much as it should?