Red Sox's Dobbins defends discrepancies about father's career - ESPN

BOSTON — Red Sox rookie Hunter Dobbins made some headlines prior to his first career start against the Yankees last week when he said he would retire before pitching for New York.

Now he's explaining why the claims he made about his father once playing for Boston's longtime rivals aren't the intentional fabrication that a New York Post report says they were.

Hunter Dobbins said Wednesday he was made aware of the Post story, but said there is nothing nefarious about the connections he said his father had to the Yankees.

«My feelings and all that are based on my personal experiences and nothing to do with growing up or family,» Dobbins said. «The whole backstory is stuff I heard growing up and seen pictures of from my dad. At the end of my day, it's just from my dad and how I kind of grew my love for the game. But at the end of the day I don't go and fact-check my dad or anything like that.»

In a June 7 Boston Herald feature on Dobbins that ran the day before he allowed three runs and four hits in five innings in an 11-7 win over the Yankees, he said that his father, Lance Dobbins, had been drafted twice by the Yankees before being traded to the Arizona Diamondbacks. The story also makes reference to Dobbins saying his father was friends with Andy Pettitte, who played 15 major league seasons with New York.

But the Post report found no evidence of any of that, citing multiple official databases and the Yankees' own records that couldn't substantiate Lance Dobbins having played with the organizations. Lance Dobbins' own profile on the Baseball-Reference.com doesn't list any Yankees affiliation. The 2025 Red Sox Media Guide does mention him on Hunter Dobbins' biography page but says only that Lance «pitched for 2 seasons