Former Giants megastar Buster Posey has claimed that current baseball star Shohei Ohtani declined a contract with the team and chose the Los Angeles Dodgers due to San Francisco’s poor reputation as a city.
“Ohtani’s stats as a slugger and a pitcher basically match up to Babe Ruth’s at this point in his career,” noted NBC Bay Area. “He’s an impossibly rare talent with that combo, and it’s why the Dodgers have signed him to a 10-year, $700 million deal.”
Though the San Francisco Giants offered Ohtani a contract nearly identical to the Dodgers, experts believe the city’s reputation, which has quickly become a fecal-infested homeless den of crime in recent years, would hinder the deal.
A person experiencing homelessness on Ellis Street in San Francisco, California, U.S., on Wednesday, March 2, 2022. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
“When it comes to Shohei Ohtani, they recognized that he had a comfort level in Southern California, and that was going to be a difficult thing,” said Andrew Baggarly of The Athletic.
Buster Posey agreed.
“There’s been a bit of uneasiness with the city itself as far as the state of the city with crime and drugs,” Posey said to Baggarly. “There was some reservation.”
Posey said that other free agents have expressed a similar concern. San Francisco Supervisor Matt Dorsey, who represents the district where the Giants play, said that he has heard similar complaints from businesses within the city.
“What I heard from Buster Posey is what I have heard from large employers and what I have heard from businesses that San Francisco needs to do a better job at progress on its public safety challenges,” said Dorsey.
Buster Posey, #28 of the San Francisco Giants, speaks at a press conference announcing his retirement from Major League Baseball at Oracle Park on November 04, 2021, in San Francisco, California. (Thearon W. Henderson/Getty Images)
Dorsey has been campaigning for full police staffing.
“If we can’t make progress on police staffing, we’re going to have a hard time making progress on anything. And in some ways, I think this reputational issue that is playing out now with a Major League Baseball player is emblematic of why we need to take this seriously,” said Dorsey.
Paul Roland Bois directed the award-winning feature film, EXEMPLUM, which can be viewed for FREE on YouTube or Tubi. A high-quality, ad-free stream can also be purchased on Google Play or Vimeo on Demand. Follow him on Twitter @prolandfilms or Instagram @prolandfilms.