Johnny Damon to ESPN’s Jemele Hill: Talk sports, not politics

Former World Series champion Johnny Damon on Friday reacted to the controversy surrounding ESPN anchor Jemele Hill’s outburst on social media about President Trump.

Earlier in the week, Hill called the president a white supremacist and a bigot in a Twitter rant.

The ‘SportsCenter’ co-host’s comments prompted President Trump to fire back at the Disney-owned network.

Trump took to Twitter Friday morning saying ESPN is “paying a really big price for its politics (and bad programming). People are dumping it in RECORD numbers. Apologize for untruth!”

During an interview with FOX Business’ Stuart Varney of Varney & Co., Damon said viewers tune in to a sports channel to watch sports not politics.

“I would rather sports talk about positive things, J.J. Watt, talk about Michael Bennett and what he did to stay alive when he was handcuffed. Teach people instead of dividing people,” he said.

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The former New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox player said Hill should use her platform to inspire people instead of providing an outlet for her audience to become more accepting of rants against the commander-in-chief.

“I’m a big believer in if you talk things out, work things out, look at the positive of things, things are going to get better and slowly but surely I think people are starting to see that,” Damon said.