Former major league pitcher Trevor Bauer came under criticism in Japan on Wednesday after he appeared to express support on social media for a US Navy officer who had been jailed over a car crash that killed two Japanese citizens.
Bauer, a free agent who played the 2023 season with the Yokohama DeNA BayStars of Japan’s Nippon Professional Baseball following his suspension and release from the LA Dodgers amid allegations of sexual abuse, posted an Instagram comment to the page of Lt Ridge Alkonis, who was released from Japanese custody last month while serving a three-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to the negligent driving deaths of a woman and her son-in-law in May 2021.
Alkonis was released from US custody on Friday, one month after he was returned to the United States and placed in a federal prison. His family has said the crash was an accident that was caused when he lost consciousness while on a trip to Mount Fuji. Japanese prosecutors maintained that he fell asleep while drowsy and shirked a duty to pull over as he became fatigued. The case has generated substantial publicity over the past year and a half and had become a periodic point of tension between the two allies.
Bauer’s brief message under a photo on Alkonis’ Instagram feed – “Welcome home Ridge!” – kicked off a social-media firestorm in Japan, where a tweet denouncing the 2020 National League Cy Young Award winner has been retweeted nearly 20,000 times with more than 26m total views.
21年5月、🇺🇸Ridge Alkonis海軍中尉が静岡県で54歳男性＆85歳女性を轢いて死なせる
— 滝沢ガレソ🪄 (@takigare3) January 16, 2024
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「富士山の帰りで高山病のせいで運転中意識を失った」と主張するもただの居眠り運転だと認定され懲役3年実刑判決
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22年7月、判決を受け横須賀刑務所へ収監
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Alkonis氏の妻が「不当判決であり収監はおかしい！今… pic.twitter.com/BA5N2C47oT
Bauer was placed on administrative leave by MLB in July 2021 over allegations that he sexually assaulted a San Diego-area woman on two different occasions at his home in Pasadena during what she said began as consensual sexual encounters between them. The 32-year-old Bauer denied the claim, saying the encounters were consensual.
Prosecutors decided not to file charges in February 2022. Bauer and the woman settled their civil lawsuit in October.
Bauer, who signed a three-year, $103m contract with the Dodgers in 2021, was suspended an unprecedented 324 games by MLB – a ban reduced to 194 games by an independent arbitrator in December 2022 – under the league’s joint domestic violence, sexual assault and child abuse policy. After Bauer’s suspension ended, the Dodgers cut him and no team picked him up, leading him to sign a one-year deal with Yokohama, where he was selected as an All-Star by the fans. (Los Angeles paid Bauer over $22m last season despite him not being on the roster.)
The veteran right-hander faces a different accusation from an Arizona woman who alleges in a lawsuit he held a knife at her throat and choked her until she passed out during a rape that left her pregnant in late 2020.
Bauer was never arrested or charged and has countersued, denying the allegations and accusing the woman of faking a pregnancy and trying to extort money from him.
The New York Post reported in November that Bauer’s agents have met with MLB teams with hopes of plotting his major league return. He told Fox News earlier this month that he would “love a second opportunity to do things better”, admitting that he was “reckless” and “made a lot of mistakes along the way”.
“I agreed to do things I shouldn’t have done,” Bauer said. “It was reckless. It hurt a lot of people along the way. It made things very difficult for Major League Baseball, for the Dodgers, my teammates, friends, family, people close to me. So I’ve done a lot of reflecting on that and made a lot of changes in my life to address that.”
Asked if he was apologizing for his actions, Bauer said, “I’m certainly taking accountability for my role in this. I’ve put myself in a lot of positions that have made things very hard for people, and I’m trying to be better.”
