SHOCKER… People Are Mad At Braves Reporter Who Got A Woman’s Number During The Broadcast: “Gross & Misogynistic”

Quinn Eaton·
CULTURESPORTS
·
Braves Reporter

God forbid a reporter have a little fun.

During a tilt between the Atlanta Braves and the Toronto Blue Jays last night, the Braves broadcast booth sent their field reporter, Wiley Ballard, to check out the Corona Rooftop at Toronto’s Rogers Centre during the 5th inning. The guys calling the game had heard that the rooftop area in the left field was more family friendly, while the Corona Rooftop in the right field seats was more directed towards adults.

So Wiley Ballard went to investigate.

One could say that his investigative work delivered. When the booth threw it over to Wiley, he was getting to know two blonde fans sitting in the rooftop area. Lauren and Kayla were posted up taking in the Braves-Bluejays game, and the Braves field reporter got busy asking if they were enjoying their time. At one point, play-by-play announcer Brandon Gaudin brought up that Wiley only had so many innings remaining in the game to secure some digits:

“Okay Wiley… you’ve got four or five innings to get their numbers.”

But it didn’t take four of five innings for Ballard to come through. In fact, it hardly even took four or five seconds. Wiley pulled out his phone and told the ladies taking in the baseball game that the guys speaking in his ear piece gave him orders to get a phone number:

“Alright, so they want me to get your number. I’m dead serious. They are saying it in my ear right now. She doesn’t believe me because she thinks I’m making this up.”

No harm, no foul, right?

When the video first hit the internet, the hilarious moment was met with much celebration. Wiley Ballard quickly became a household name… if only for a couple of hours on social media. And Wiley’s “How you like them apples?” Good Will Hunting reference after he successfully got a phone number on live national television was icing on the cake:

But just as all of the fun was getting started, the internet trolls came in to make a very unserious situation deathly serious.

A collection of sports fans, reporters and writers, took to social media to call out the Braves broadcast, saying what they and Wiley Ballard did was wrong and offensive to women. In the reply sections of both the video and Ballard’s “How About Them Apples?” meme, accusatory messages like these started multiplying:

And hey… was it the most professional moment from the Braves broadcast and their field reporter? Maybe not. But does Ballard talking to some women in the Corona Rooftop area of the bar – and getting one of their numbers on live TV – deserving of overwhelming backlash? It most certainly is not.

We’ve all got to learn to take a deep breath and to move away from the hyper sensitivity that has run rampant in recent years. Not everything has to be a big deal, you know? Not everything has to be divided into two sides. Sometimes, two things can be true: Wiley Ballard securing digits on TV might not be all that professional, but it’s also not that big of a deal.

But regarding the double standard, give me a break. How many times are men treated like a piece of meat from women in television? If a female sideline reporter did the same thing, she certainly would be ridiculed by a small minority bozo male sports fans who don’t want women involved in sports anyways, but would she be getting heat from her male colleagues and regular male sports fans? Absolutely not. They would laugh about it, and vehemently defend her to the aforementioned bozos who are actually misogynistic. It was funny and harmless. I mean, last I checked, Joy Taylor still had a job…

It’s been nice to see that plenty of people have rushed to the defense of Wiley Ballard… even though the Braves field reporter didn’t do anything wrong:

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