Red Sox rookie, accused of lying by New York tabloid, addresses dad's Yankees claims

Boston Red Sox pitcher Hunter Dobbins tried to set the record straight Wednesday.

Not about playing for the New York Yankees himself — the 25-year-old rookie told the Boston Herald "if the Yankees were the last team to give me a contract, I’d retire" — but about his claims that his dad was twice drafted by the Red Sox's archrivals.

In addition to debunking those claims, the New York Post reached out to former Yankees pitcher Andy Pettitte, whom Dobbins claimed was "good friends" with his dad. Pettitte told Joel Sherman that “neither he nor anyone he asked in his family remembers Lance Dobbins."

So, who's right?

“At the end of the day I don’t go and fact check my dad,” Dobbins told reporters Wednesday, including the Herald's Mac Cerullo.

Fact-checking his father was certainly a choice at Dobbins' disposal, since MLB draft records are fairly comprehensive and publicly available since the draft was instituted in 1965.

But we can forgive the rookie for focusing on his career instead, and leaving the fact-checking to the Yankees' beat writers. Unfortunately for Dobbins, his audacious comments were immediately seized upon and splashed on the back page of New York City's largest paper.

Consider it a lesson learned — about his father's playing career, and about how the media machine works in 2025.

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