Miguel Montero and Jake Arieta: Was There a Wall?

Most news stories about Miguel Montero’s swift dismissal from the Cubs take a two-part approach: Montero had a good point, but he violated a norm about not throwing your teammate under the bus publicly.

Maybe it’s a bit deeper.

America is deeply polarized over the 2016 election. Friendships have been lost over whether one favors or opposes Donald Trump.

Now mix in the fact that Cubs ownership is tight with Donald Trump. Todd Ricketts was nominated by Trump to be Deputy Commerce Secretary but bowed out due to apparent conflicts of interest (bravo, Todd).

Throw in Jake Arieta’s tweet shortly after Trump’s big win: “Time for Hollywood to pony up and head for the border #illhelpyoupack #beatit.”

For most of us, it’s a throwaway tweet. And maybe Montero paid no mind to it.

But maybe it got under his skin. Montero grew up in poverty in Venezuela. He is likely here on an “O-1 visa.” If he married a U.S. citizen, he can qualify for citizenship that way—for now.

This is all speculation, but the point is that politics may have seeped into the Arieta-Montero battery in the kind of toxic way that many of our relationships are suffering from a lack of civility.

I’m not saying the Cubs are wrong—but I am saying that the Cubs are a very different team this year. Maybe there’s a wall that separates one group of young stars such as Anthony Rizzo and Kris Bryant who grew up with an upper middle class background, and another group of players—Willson Contraras (Venezuela), Pedro Strop (Domincan Republic), Javier Baez (U.S. citizen from poor island territory, Puerto Rico). If this is true, throwing out Montero won’t solve the problem.

And by the way, if you think the Cubs treated Montero fairly, let's also recognize that the Cubs didn't flinch at trading for baseball's best closer last year, Aroldis Chapman, after he allegedly choked his wife; nor did the Cubs flinch when two star infielders, Starlin Castro and Addison Russell, faced allegations of assaulting women. Yes, that's different from Montero's public rant, and yes, Montero isn't close to these players in talent.

But as of today, the Cubs owe Montero $14 million. That's a lot to pay for high-minded hypocrisy.