Brandon Tierney Cancels Paul O'Neill Interview For Refusing to Discuss Josh Donaldson-Tim Anderson Incident

Brandon Tierney and Tiki Barber
Brandon Tierney and Tiki Barber /
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The Tim Anderson-Josh Donaldson feud was the story of the weekend in Major League Baseball. On Monday, Tiki and Tierney were set to have New York Yankees broadcaster Paul O'Neill on their WFAN show to discuss what happened. Brandon Tierney abruptly canceled the interview live on-air after getting word O'Neill refused to talk about the incident.

O'Neill was on hold via Zoom when Tierney got word he wouldn't answer questions about Donaldson. He promptly canceled the interview saying:

"We were supposed to have him on right now and he is on hold ... He has a new book coming out, called, 'Swing and a Hit.' And Jack Curry wrote it, along with Paul. We were told -- and Tiki you don’t even know this because I was going through this while you were finishing up your thought on the air. We were told we can not ask anything about Donaldson and Anderson.

"I said, 'We can’t do the interview if that is the case.' I said, 'Please tell Paul, we will navigate this responsibly. We will not belabor it. But I can't have Paul O'Neill on the show after we spent an hour and 35 minutes talking about Tim Anderson and Josh Donaldson and not ask him about what transpired. That sucks. No disrespect to Paul. I love him. Truly, my second all-time favorite Yankee. We have a responsibility to the show."

Here's what Tierney had to say about the incident:

Tierney is 100 percent correct here. That's a bush league move by O'Neill to avoid what was the biggest topic in sports this weekend. If there's anything he didn't feel comfortable answering, O'Neill could have just said so on-air. Instead he wanted no part of it. And Tierney is correct, if you want to be taken seriously as an interviewer you cannot accept conditions just to talk to someone. That's not how it works.

In lieu of getting O'Neill's opinion on the Donaldson-Anderson incident, here's what Tierney and co-host Tiki Barber had to say about it: