New York Mets’ second base starter, Daniel Murphy, was harshly criticized for missing two games, including opening day due to the birth of his first son, Noah.
Murphy released a statement to the press stating, “That’s the awesome part about being blessed, about being a parent, is you get that choice. My wife and I discussed it, and we felt the best thing for our family was for me to try to stay for an extra day… just to have that support system with her.”
The initial debate comes from the CBS Sports network Boomer and Carton show, in which the talk show host, Carton, discussed the decision for Murphy’s paternity leave.
Carton said, “The baby is good. You have a good support system for the mom and the baby. You get your ass back to your team and you play baseball. That’s my take on it.”
Boomer, who was a starting quarterback in the NFL for 13 seasons, said, “I wouldn’t do that. Quite frankly I would have said, C-section before the season starts, I need to be at Opening Day. I’m sorry, this is what makes our money, this is how we are going to live our life; this is going to give my child every opportunity to be a success in life.”
Legally, Murphy has a paternal leave of two weeks, and initial reports indicated that he may take the full two weeks off, which added fuel to the fire for Boomer and Carton, who are Mets fans.
The two stressed that as long as there were no complications and all were healthy that Murphy needed to “get back to work,” in the words of Boomer in regards to a 24-hour period. Missing Opening Day was unacceptable to the WFAN talk show hosts.
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nnigro@ramapo.edu
