Baseball Hall of Fame pitcher and Baltimore Orioles great Jim Palmer is criticizing the “open borders” agenda of President Joe Biden.
In a thread posted on X, the Orioles broadcaster called the immigration crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border “detrimental” to the nation’s safety.
His Wednesday post drew a lot of attention, some of it critical. But Palmer brushed the criticism aside with grace, writing, “I am allowed to have an opinion.”
Palmer, 78, the winner of three Cy Young Awards, apparently did not go on X to hit the border crisis. That was an afterthought tagged to the end of a post praising officials for getting him a new passport faster than expected.
He wrote: “Amazing fact. My US passport was about to expire, sent it in expedited, normally 4-6 weeks, came back in 11 days. I guess they’re not doing much passport business at our southern border.”
Egged on by a follower to share a compliment to the State Department for coming through so fast, he wrote two hours later, “A remarkable job of getting me my passport 1 month or so before what I was told at the US post office. They too were extremely helpful.”
But it was the comment about the southern border that prompted some to poke Palmer.
For example, one of his followers wrote, “Could’ve just stayed classy and dignified and non-political which would’ve kept you beloved by almost all baseball fans instead of doing this for what’ll be a few hundred cheap Likes.”
That prompted Palmer to post, “I am allowed to have an opinion. My opinion is open borders are detrimental to our countries safety. I would say the same thing if we had open borders when Trump was president.”
That opened the floodgates for those focused on the border to embrace and slam Palmer.
One X user wrote to Palmer, “You chose this of all issues?”
Without editorializing, Palmer responded, “I’ll leave you with this. The # 1 issue in the Iowa, New Hampshire primaries was immigration. Economy second. So I guess voters think immigration is an important topic. Great thing about our country, we get to vote.”
In several responses to critics, Palmer was cool and respectful. He suggested that if people were mad, they could “mute” him.
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One fan wrote, “Bro I became an Os fan in 1970 because of him. 54 yrs destroyed by one tweet!”
Palmer responded, “You can still be a O’s fan. Great young team. And they all may be for open borders. Just dislike me.”