Paternity Leave: NY Met, Daniel Murphy, Under Fire For Missing Opening Day After Wife Gave Birth
New York Mets second baseman, Daniel Murphy, was recently bashed on the radio by talk show hosts, Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason.
Their gripe is with Murphy taking paternity leave after his wife gave birth to their 8-pound son on Monday, which was an hour before the Mets' first pitch of the season.
"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 after hearing on-air criticism from WFAN Radio regarding his decision, ESPN reported. “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.”
Esaison said that Murphy should have had his wife schedule a Caesarian-section before the season started. According to his MLBPA’s collective bargaining agreement from 2011, Murphy is eligible for taking one to three days off.
"What are you going to do? I mean you are going to sit there and look at your wife in a hospital bed for two days?” Esiason said. “Your wife doesn’t need your help the first couple of days; you know that you’re not doing much the first couple days with the baby that was just born.”
Take a look at the video below and decide for yourself: