Matt Shaw Misses Game to Attend Funeral

Cubs rookie third baseman Matt Shaw missed Sunday’s loss to the Cincinnati Reds to attend the funeral of a friend. All signs point to the identity of that friend being Charlie Kirk.

I know how I felt about this when I first heard the news. It wasn’t altogether different than my reaction when I first heard that Shaw was scratched from the game on September 10 due to personal reasons. But my personal emotional reaction isn’t important. To be as transparent as I feel is appropriate, I’m not sure what is important about this story.

What I want to do is try to put this event in context and think somewhat critically and humanely about it. So let’s frame this a few different ways.

A Rookie Missed a Somewhat Important Game to Attend a Funeral

Matt Shaw is a rookie, a fact that historically would lend a decision to miss a game in late September (one in which his absence put his team at a very specific disadvantage in the 9th inning with the game on the line) to be met with the highest scrutiny imaginable. As Craig Calcaterra and others pointed out on Bluesky, it wasn’t that long ago when even the birth of your child wasn’t a good enough reason to miss a baseball game. The fact that it was a rookie definitely makes it feel less acceptable, whether that’s a valid consideration or not.

But had I not known for whom the bell tolled (spoiler alert: thee), I don’t know that this would bother me at all. It would have stood out on a baseball team. Bereavement leaves aren’t rare, but it’s my impression, at least, that players are more likely to take time off to be with family than to attend a specific service. Who cares? Eh, not me, just trying to cover as many of the bases as makes sense. Let’s try this another way, just to mix it up.

A 23-year-old Kid Missed Work (on Sunday) to Attend a Funeral

This is the most casual way I can think of to frame this, and maybe it’s the best? I certainly can think of few reasons to beef with someone who shrugs this entire story off as insignificant because, in the end, it’s just some kid calling off work to go to a funeral on a Sunday. Hell, in just about any context, I wouldn’t care if the 23 year old in question actually went to the funeral. Who cares? If I think about it this way, not me. But I don’t exactly think about it this way. Okay, time for another reframing.

A Baseball Player Missed a Game Because of Trauma

Forget his age, forget his rookie status, forget even the specific occasion . . . what if we look at this through the lens of someone who has experienced trauma? This is the most generous frame I can place around this absence, and it requires me to set aside most if not all of the immense negativity I harbor against Kirk and his adoring mourners. I’m going to extend that generosity so far that it bends the limits of good sense.

Allow me (or don’t, I can’t tell you what to do . . . and you may very well hate me for even thinking about drawing this so-called parallel) to compare it to a traumatic episode from the life of a far less controversial figure: Joey Votto. In 2008, Votto’s father died. In 2009, the grief of that loss had built up so much that it forced Joey Votto to go on the disabled list from severe anxiety and eventual PTSD.

Votto eventually started a foundation for people suffering from PTSD, an effort I think we can all agree is well worth any investment or attention it might receive in this world where trauma never takes a day off. And if you follow the previous link you can get a sense of the stigma associated with Votto’s DL stint at the time before fans had all the pertinent facts.

Not having all the pertinent facts is getting all of my attention at this point in the thought exercise, and it’s doing the heavy lifting, believe me. Look, I’m extremely hesitant to go on the record comparing losing your father to losing your favorite racist podcaster. As someone who has lost his father (briefly to Trumpism, forever to heart disease) I do so out of nothing but the desire to show empathy on an almost aggressive level. That said, I don’t know how Matt Shaw is feeling. I don’t know what experience Matt Shaw has with losing loved ones to gun violence. I don’t know what Matt Shaw liked/loved about Charlie Kirk. I suspect that what they had in common is their idea of a rally hat is one that’s pointy with holes cut out for the eyes, but I don’t know that for sure. For all I know, Kirk could have saved Shaw from drowning, taught him how to fish, or gave him the most unforgettable summer of his life. I don’t know. I can’t know.

And frankly, I don’t know that I want to police what counts as trauma in the human experience. If the cause of someone’s trauma is the death of someone who spent their life traumatizing the marginalized, their trauma still counts. They are allowed to feel and process that trauma in a humane way, just as I am allowed to feel and process that information how I see fit. Based on what we do know, I feel safe assuming that Matt Shaw felt traumatized by the death of Charlie Kirk. Who cares? I mean, I care about that. I have extremely complicated feelings about that. But I would much rather live in a world where we allow, even encourage people to process their trauma than a world where we encourage people to suppress it if we don’t find the cause of that trauma valid or respectable. I think it’s a better world where that type of processing is encouraged. I think a person who takes time to grieve is made all the better for it than a person who presses on without doing so.

And yes, I know Charlie Kirk didn’t extend that type of grace to people. The irony’s not lost on me, but I don’t care. I haven’t the slightest desire to be like him.

Matt Shaw Appears to Be a Charlie Kirk Fan

Yeah, this is the part I hate. That’s my personal view. It’s what I can’t reconcile with cheering on his success. From where I sit, agreeing with Kirk’s views is both deplorable and also probably pretty common in the Cubs clubhouse (and all the way up the org chart). While I was writing this, an old coworker texted me a link to a facebook post. I couldn’t see the entire headline in the preview, and I won’t be clicking on it, but the headline of the article (beneath a photo of the Kirk funeral) began “I’m going to tell you why 20….” I assume, had the preview allowed, the headline would have read “I’m going to tell you why 200,000 people attended Charlie Kirk’s funeral,” which, aside from being an exaggerated lie, could have been answered much more succinctly and accurately than that article did with a simple tl/dr: “Because they’re racists.”

If you don’t agree with that sentiment, I will safely assume it’s because you don’t think bigotry is a problem because you don’t have a problem with bigotry. I do. I strongly and vehemently object to it.

But I’d very much like to live in a world in which people grieve their losses instead of taking out their grievances on people who are already suffering. And for that reason, I’m glad Matt Shaw missed the stupid game. I laugh derisively at his choice of friends, but (and I truly can’t believe I’m saying this) I applaud his decision to grieve when they die.