ST. LOUIS – If not for social media Pedro Strop wouldn’t have even known what Bob Costas said. By the time the famed broadcaster asked to meet with Strop to apologize, the Cubs’ reliever wanted nothing to do with him.
But Costas, who happened to stay this weekend at the Cubs’ team hotel, staked out Strop in the lobby, and on Sunday morning made peace with Strop over his strange and insensitive on-air comments after Strop’s poor outing Friday night.
“I just feel better now that he’s at least apologized. We all do stuff that we have to apologize for,” Strop said before the Cubs’ Sunday night game against the St. Louis Cardinals. “He also asked me who else he had to apologize to. I said there’s some more people upset because of what you said, but we all make mistakes. And I’m not going to judge him just because he made a mistake.”
Strop, who gave up a tying homer and hit a batter and walked another in Friday’s eighth, said he only learned of Costas’ remarks after he was going to bed Friday night and noticing “my Instagram blowing out.”
Costas’ commentary came as Strop left the field and pointed to the sky as he always does when exiting: “Motte is on his way in, Strop is on his way out, pointing toward the heavens. We can only ask, or wonder that he is asking some departed relative for forgiveness for this atrocious performance.”
Strop rejected Costas’ first effort to apologize after the broadcaster asked through a team representative to speak with the pitcher.
“When I saw the comment that he said, I felt pretty bad. At that moment really bad,” Strop said. “I didn’t want to talk to him.”
After Costas caught up to him, Strop softened.
“A lot of people told me he’s a great guy. And he’s a legend, one of the best at what he does,” Strop said. “I just told him everybody makes mistakes.”
