In case you haven’t heard, or if you happen to live under a rock, Yankees rookie starting pitcher Cam Schlittler (4-3, 2.96 ERA) is from Walpole, MA.
Growing up less than 40 miles from Boston during the heart of the David Ortiz Era, of course the kid was a massive Red Sox fan. All he’s ever known is a franchise where winning championships was the expectation, not an unachievable goal guarded away by an almost century-old “curse.”
After a successful college career at Northeastern where he played his home games 1.4 miles away from Fenway Park, Schlittler was drafted in the seventh round of the 2022 MLB Draft by the team he was born and bred to hate - the New York Yankees (94-68).
And three years later, he was pitching the game of his life against his hometown team, going 8 innings and striking out 12 across 107 pitches at Yankee Stadium in game three of the AL Wild Card round, advancing the Bronx Bombers past the Red Sox (89-73) on to the ALDS to take on Toronto (94-68).
Even without the added backstory, a performance like this for a player in their postseason debut is already the stuff of legends.
But when you go one level deeper into this hometown-kid-narrative, that’s when you can start putting together the Hollywood script.
It wasn’t just that Schlittler wanted to prove to Boston that they shouldn’t have passed on the kid from their own backyard, he was motivated to stick it to a fanbase that he felt crossed a line ahead of his game three start.
Here’s what Gary Phillips of the New York Daily News wrote on X.com on Friday evening:
“Cam Schlittler confirmed that he was referring to social media posts directed at his mom ‘from some of the bigger accounts they've got over there’ when he said some #RedSox fans crossed a line yesterday. He became aware before he took the mound.
“He didn't want to give anyone the ‘attention they're looking for,’ but he was ‘disappointed’ that it came from the area he grew up in.
“‘It's playoff baseball,’ he added, ‘and I think they learned their lesson.’”
“Play Tessie” podcaster Nat “Gordo” Gordon quote-tweeted Phillips’ post, asking his followers on X, “How is pointing out that his mom has Red Sox in her Twitter bio crossing any sort of line? Or did I miss something further?”
If it were just that, it clearly wouldn’t have been a big deal. But obviously, it went beyond that.
Case in point - it appears Schlittler’s mom was forced to change her X profile to private given the harassment she was receiving from Sox fans:
This extremely specific, extremely online situation is a microcosm of the way people live on the internet in 2025:
- Person with large following says XYZ about XYZ
- Fans of person with large following take XYZ about XYZ and amplify it to the nth degree
- Original comment, regardless if it were said in jest or not, gets completely blown out of proportion
When a guy like Jared Carrabis is clearly having fun with a clip of Schlittler from Wednesday, it shouldn’t be an invitation for Red Sox fans to go out and start harassing a dude’s mom. I know I shouldn’t have to say that, but here we are.
If there’s anything refreshing to come out of this story, it’s that Schlittler was willing to say the quiet thing outloud, admitting that he saw the online chatter and that it motivated him to have a huge performance on the biggest stage of his baseball career to date. Most of the time, athletes will tell you that they don’t read or watch anything that’s said about them. Given Schlittler’s age, we all know that would be an almost impossible ask of him in the age we live in. We’re all on our phones all the time, there’s no reason to pretend otherwise.
Maybe Schlittler’s response to this situation, both on the field and through his postgame comments, will help curtail future online trolling and harassment. It probably won’t, but it’s at least worth a shot, right?
Further evidence that Schlittler is very online - his clapback at DraftKings influencer/Red Sox fan Lucy Burdge was tremendous:
In the grand scheme of things, this story does not matter. But maybe it’s a lesson for someone who was about to fire off a Venmo request to a player who ruined their “can’t miss parlay,” or was a tap away from tweeting something hateful at a player’s parent.
These guys are human, too. And they have families just like you and I.
Tom Carroll is a contributor for Roundtable, with boots-on-the-ground coverage of all things Boston sports. He's a senior digital content producer for WEEI.com, and a native of Lincoln, RI.