In a Hilarious Turn Of Events, The Dad Of Red Sox Rookie Hunter Dobbins Lied To Him About Being Drafted And Traded By The Yankees, As Well As His Friendship With Andy Pettitte

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Did your dad ever tell you a lie growing up about his life? Something to make him seem really cool, but also something you could really never question him on? I feel like that's happened to all of us and eventually we all realize it. It's part of life in a way, but typically these lies don't ever come to surface to bite us in the ass. My version of this was my dad telling me he once walked into a NYC bar after the 1996 World Series and saw Derek Jeter with two women draped over each shoulder. He didn't want a picture or autograph, he just walked on over and shook his hand. What an easy lie to tell. No one on Earth could ever fact check it. The lie itself is so harmless, but sounds cool to retell. Could it have happened? Sure. Did it actually? I highly, highly doubt it. Dad took that one to the grave without ever relenting on it so I guess we'll never know! Those are the kind of fun lies you tell your son growing up. Making up an entire professional baseball career to conjure up your family's hatred for the New York Yankees? A bit much if you ask me. But who would do that? 

Red Sox rookie Hunter Dobbins made headlines last week when he said he would rather retire than play for the Yankees. This came on the precipice of facing the Bronx Bombers on Sunday Night Baseball in New York. But why the hate? The basis of it stemmed from his dad being drafted by the Yankees twice, signing the second time, and then immediately getting traded to the Diamondbacks. From that point on the Dobbins family would bleed Yankee hate. 

Well, with Dobbins set to face the Yankees for a second time in a row this coming Saturday, reporters started to dig into the story. They found…nothing. Turns out Dobbins' father Lance was never once drafted by the Yankees. In fact, no one has found any reference of any kind that he's played professional baseball. All Baseball Reference has is two seasons of Independent ball to his name. 

(NY Post) The Post’s Joel Sherman reported that Lance Dobbins does not appear as a Yankees draft pick for any season on Baseball Reference and that Yankees GM Brian Cashman — who has been with the organization since 1986 — has no recollection of the Yankees ever drafting a Lance Dobbins. Cashman also told Sherman that the Yankees amateur department checked their records and could not find anything about drafting a Lance Dobbins. Even further, Joe Garagiola Jr. and Buck Showalter, who were with the Diamondbacks in 1996-97, told Sherman they had no recollection of a Lance Dobbins. MLB itself could not find a Lance Dobbins having played at any level with any of the league’s 30 teams.

There's also the part of Lance Dobbins being very close friends with Andy Pettitte.

Dobbins, in the Boston Herald story, also said his dad and Yankees great Andy Pettitte were “really good friends.”

But Pettitte told Sherman that neither he nor anyone he asked in his family remembers a Lance Dobbins.

Never heard of the guy. Incredible. 

So Dobbins' dad is a huge liar, pathological if you will. Worse things though considering the severity of the lie? It does, however, create a bit of an awkward situation for Hunter right now. Guy just gave this whole Boston Herald exposé about his upbringing and had all of the baseball world talking about him leading up to Sunday Night Baseball. 

“The whole back story, it was stuff that I had heard growing up and seen pictures of, from my dad,” Dobbins said before the Red Sox-Rays game at Fenway Park. “At the end of the day, it’s just from my dad and what I kind of grew my love for the game. At the end of the day, I don’t go fact-check my dad or anything like that.”

“Doesn’t faze me,” he said. “Doesn’t bother me. I love working with the media and everybody here. Everybody’s been great. My focus is performing for the guys here in the locker room, for the fans in Boston. Something that’s a few hours away doesn’t faze me.”

I'll say this though. Hate is good in sports. I have no problem at all with Hunter Dobbins saying he'd rather retire than play for the Yankees. We need more of that. I despise this fucker now and that's healthy. There's too much buddy-buddy in the sport and in the rivalry these days. Mid 2000s Yankees-Red Sox bad blood was like nothing else. We need to wind back the clocks and inject some of that into the current war. See you on Saturday, Hunter. 

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*ignore that the Yankees lost this game