Toronto Blue Jays Are Restricting Their Players’ ‘Fortnite’ Time
Credit to Author: Mack Lamoureux| Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2019 17:12:05 +0000
The Toronto Blue Jays have decided that their players are gaming too damn much before they play their big boy games.
So, to address this, the Jays are going to be restricting their players video gaming time on game days as one would with a teenager getting bad grades.
On Monday, the Athletic’s John Lott tweeted out that general manager Charlie Montoyo was set to “impose pre-game curfew on playing video games in clubhouse this season… Some players suggested there was too much Fortnite last year.” According to Sportsnet, the decision was “player-driven” and the athletes broached the subject with Montoyo during a meeting this spring.
For those of you not in the know, Fortnite is an extremelllllyy popular third-person battle royale shooter. This isn’t the first time that the uber popular game has been brought up in a, shall we say, less than favorably in connection to baseball.
In May of last year, Boston’s David Price, one of the top pitchers in the league, was beset by a case of carpal tunnel—an odd injury for a professional athlete—which some speculated was the result of Fortnite. Price would allegedly haul an Xbox around on a backpack and he and his team would play Fortnite during their downtime. He vowed to cut down his gaming after the injury.
Also last season, ESPN reported veteran first basemen of the Philadelphia Phillies, Carlos Santana, grabbed a baseball bat and smashed up the Phillies clubhouse TV so his teammates couldn’t game. His teammates would apparently play Fortnite as the baseball game was occurring—an act Santana found disrespectful.
Teams are also worried about the youngest of their professional athletes gaming too hard the night before and not getting enough sleep prior to game days—a worry usually associated with cocaine and drinkin’.
VICE could not confirm if the curfew will be enforced through the use of someone’s mother yelling, “boys, that’s enough video games for today” down to the club’s basement as is the traditional method of getting gamers to put down the controller.
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