It only took two games for a controversial story to take the New York Mets fan base by storm, and it had nothing to do with play on the field. Daniel Murphy was put in the tough position of having to defend his decision to be a husband and new father after he skipped the team's first two games to be by his wife's side after she gave birth to their son, Noah.
Daniel Murphy receives backlash through Twitter and on WFAN for taking paternity leave
ESPN reports that Murphy said that the decision to be by his wife's side in Florida while taking paternity leave from the team and missing the first two games of the season was the right move amidst criticism from some Mets fans and WFAN New York radio hosts.
"I got a couple of text messages about it, so I'm not going to sit here and lie and say I didn't hear about it," Murphy said about the criticisms via ESPN. "But that's the awesome part about being blessed, about being a parent, is you get that choice. My wife and I discussed it, and we felt the best thing for our family was for me to try to stay for an extra day -- that being Wednesday -- due to the fact that she can't travel for two weeks."
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He added: "It's going to be tough for her to get up to New York for a month. I can only speak from my experience -- a father seeing his wife -- she was completely finished. I mean, she was done. She had surgery and she was wiped. Having me there helped a lot, and vice versa, to take some of the load off. ... It felt, for us, like the right decision to make."
Murphy received news that his wife's water broke at around 11:30 p.m. Sunday night and rushed to Florida for the birth of his son on Monday, which happened prior to the first pitch on Opening Day at Citi Field. His wife gave birth to an 8-pound, 2-ounce baby boy.
Murphy then used his collectively bargained right to take paternity leave on Wednesday while he returned to the team's lineup Thursday. By league rules, he could have taken three days.
After WFAN radio hosts Mike Francesa and Craig Carton made disparaging remarks about paternity leave, Mets manager Terry Collins jumped to his second baseman's aid.
"I'm sure there might be some guy along the way that said, 'Hey, listen, it's too far to go. It's too far to travel. I'll see you in a few days,'" Collins said via ESPN. "But you know what? I certainly feel it's very unfair to criticize Dan Murphy."
Murphy, who hit .286 with 13 homers and 78 RBI while playing in 161 games last season, is putting the criticisms behind him and even joked about people thinking he named his son after top Mets pitching prospect Noah Syndergaard.
"I told Syndergaard he's the 'other Noah' in my life in spring training," Murphy said per ESPN. "The first thing when we decided to do it, I was like, 'People are going to think I named him after the monstrosity that throws like 1,000 miles per hour.' We didn't."
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