Rolison, who was 15 years old at the time of the tweet, was reacting to Barack Obama’s re-election and tweeted, “Well we have one hope left… if someone shoots him during his speech.”
MORE: 2018 MLB Draft live tracker
The tweet has since been deleted, and in an interview with The Athletic, he expressed regret for ever sending it.
“It was in 2012 and it was a stupid tweet,” he said. “It was immature of me. I had no idea what I was talking about.”
The Rockies didn’t release a statement, but they were asked a general question about social media during a conference call, via CBS News. Rockies scouting director Bill Schmidt was asked if the team looks through each player’s social media accounts prior to draft night.
“We do. We take a look at it,” he said. “We realize kids do things at a very young age that they might regret at some point as they mature. We are aware of some things young people do.”
Rolison isn’t the first player to go through something like this. Prior to the NFL Draft, tweets sent by Josh Allen were discovered and shared across social media. After Villanova won the National Championship, Donte DiVincenzo deleted his entire account after old tweets were found.
