Red Sox distance themselves from Bill James’ Joe Paterno remarks

The Boston Red Sox are distancing themselves from comments made by advisor Bill James about Joe Paterno and the Jerry Sandusky sexual abuse scandal at Penn State.

In an interview on Doug Gottlieb’s ESPN Radio show last weekend, the following exchange took place:

Gottlieb: Have you ever showered with a boy?

James: No.

Gottlieb: Do you know anyone who’s showered with a boy they were not related to, was not their young son.

James: Yes, that was actually quite common in the town where I grew up. And it was quite common in most of America 40 years ago.

During the interview, James also said, while discussing the 2001 incident: “It’s very hard, in fact I think it’s impossible, to explain why Paterno should have been the person to go to the police. Paterno didn’t see anything. Paterno was not the reporting authority. Sandusky did not work for Paterno. Paterno had no supervised authority over Sandusky. It’s extremely difficult to explain why it was Paterno’s responsibility to go to the police. He knew less about it than everybody else there.”

The Red Sox said in a statement that James’ views did not represent those of the ballclub and that team owner John Henry and general manager Ben Cherington called James and asked him to stop commenting on the Penn State case.

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