Twins players take social media threats to their families seriously

HOUSTON — By the third inning of Thursday’s game at Target Field, Twins righthander Bailey Ober trailed the Rangers 6-1, and MLB security was communicating with his wife, Montana.

The link between the two? As Ober’s pitching apparently cost someone a bet, that person sent an uncomfortably specific death threat to his wife.

“It’s tough. I think every single guy in here has probably experienced it, and usually it doesn’t bother me too much,” Ober said. “But Tana was getting them — kind of specific stuff about our kids and stuff like that. … He had a plan to do something. That’s when it gets a little scary.”

That’s life as a public figure these days, where anonymous threats are practically a daily occurrence.

“It’s actually pretty routine for the pitchers. If we get beat, ‘You cost me,’ that’s what it is,” said Charles Adams III, the Twins director of team security. “Regardless of whether we win or lose, it’s ‘You were supposed to strike out seven, and you only got six.’ It’s a constant thing that we’re always monitoring.”

But those messages, usually sent via newly created profiles, hit a lot harder when family members are menaced.

“It’s a terrible situation, terrible feeling. To go after a player’s family, their kids, it gets really bad,” said Twins first baseman Ty France, who has fielded “dozens, maybe hundreds” of such vitriolic messages. “Even something as simple as a three-word DM on Facebook, we send it to MLB and they take it seriously.”

One in particular stood out. In early June 2024, France and the Mariners were at Oakland, and he went 0-for-3, striking out in the ninth inning with his team trailing by a run.

Shortly afterward, he received a message via Instagram threatening harm to his wife, their 2-month-old son and his parents.

“It just went on and on. My wife was home alone with the baby, so that gets your attention,” France said. “MLB security, they do a good job. We lived in Bellevue [Wash.] at the time, and they got the Bellevue police department involved, made sure they were aware of the threat and were on call. They take it all very seriously, they find out if it’s a fake profile, and they use tech to find out where it came from. It helps to know they’re doing everything they can.”

Several Twins players, who preferred not to speak on the record, said they have taken steps to increase security for their families, but the mass legalization of sports gambling — even though it remains illegal in Minnesota — has made things much worse.

Ober said he had received about 100 comments on social media: “ ‘Get out of here, we don’t want you anymore, go back to the minor leagues,’ to the worst ones.“ Ober said he changed his Venmo account because angry gamblers were sending him request for money that he “lost” for them. “It has picked up. Instead of five people, it’s a lot more now.”

Oregon State and Louisville were scoreless after three innings when the Twins game began Friday night, which probably didn’t make it any easier for Trevor Larnach to focus on beating the Astros. Larnach’s plan was to watch his alma mater’s College World Series opener as long as he could before beginning his pregame stretching.

“I try to watch. Can’t always, obviously,” Larnach said. “But I keep close track of it, just because it’s so much fun.”

It can hardly get more fun than hitting a two-run, tiebreaking, ninth-inning home run to send your Oregon State team to the final game of the CWS in Omaha, as Larnach did in 2018. The Beavers, who won a record six elimination games in Omaha that year, claimed the national championship a day later, shutting out Arkansas to win the best-of-three finals in three games.

“The hardest part is when you’re under that pressure of being eliminated. When you lose a game, and you’ve got to fight your way all the way back up the bracket, it can be tough,” Larnach said. “Once you’re in the final, it’s great, it’s just win it all or not. But I remember that pressure of having no room for error.”

• Veteran righthander Michael Tonkin was activated from the 60-day injured list, and rather than becoming a free agent, he accepted an outright assignment to Class AAA St. Paul.

• Righthander Alex Speas, who posted a 5.40 ERA in six spring training games with the Twins and an 11.80 ERA with the Saints, was released.

• First baseman Aaron Sabato, the Twins’ first-round pick in 2020, was promoted to St. Paul after hitting .305 with nine home runs for Class AA Wichita.

• Alika Williams hit an RBI single in the bottom of the 11th inning to give Indianapolis a 7-6 victory over the Saints.