Ariana Giolito with her husband, Lucas. Photo : Instagram

Bria Anderson, wife of Whi te Sox shortstop Tim, had a heated Instagram discussion with Elizabeth Swarzak, wife of Braves reliever Anthony, about gun violence and race, the impetus being last weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton. Swarzak, whose IG account is now protected, came off sounding very dumb.




Swarzak resorts to bringing up gun violence in Chicago despite heavy gun control (that’s a lie), says “it’s ok to be a nationalist,” and basically accuses Anderson of being racist toward white people. Hoo boy. This is rich, especially considering that Anderson works at a non-violence non-profit that does work in Alabama and Chicago.

Ariana Giolito, wife of White Sox pitcher Lucas, shared excerpts of the argument on her Instagram account on Tuesday. (You can click or scroll through some of the excerpts.) Swarzak’s messages are on the left, and Anderson’s are on the right. Giolito just included her own caption at the end, where she said she’s “disgusted and disappointed” with Swarzak.


Per the Chicago Sun-Times, Anderson said she had hoped to break through to Swarzak:

“My only hope was that the other person I had that conversation with would kind of acknowledge all sides of the spectrum of the story, as opposed to trying to change the narrative and focus in on the violence that’s obviously happening in the African American community,” Bria Anderson said. “That conversation was just kind of irrelevant, to be honest, to what we were discussing as far as the mass shootings.”

For her part, Swarzak defended herself online. Via the New York Daily News:

Swarzak responded on Instagram on Wednesday morning with a story that started with “Apparently there’s some confusion about white nationalism” and went on from there. “It’s irresponsible to use the word ‘white nationalim’ (sic) as it spreads a false narrative that it’s negative to be proud of your country. Again this was an edited post!” She did not say what in Giolito’s post was fake, or misleading, and finished the post by focusing on “children prone to gun violence in major cities.”


When asked about the conversation, Lucas stood by his wife.




The pitcher, who has voiced his support for immigrants and acknowledged that his views are different from “a lot of baseball players,” also has a strong friendship with Tim, and presumably Bria, too. Anthony Swarzak, who in 2015 suggested Barack Obama was a Muslim, likely wasn’t too embarrassed by Elizabeth’s comments.

[Chicago Sun-Times]

H/t to Jason