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Dunlap: Kang Reception This Weekend Will Be Intriguing

This is not my style at all, but I might just be non-committal in this instance. Yep, I might not take a side if faced with the situation.

I don't know if it would be chickening out or whatever, but to be totally honest, I don't know what I'd do --- and that ain't like me at all. But I'm just being honest here.

What would you do?

What will you do?

Because, indisputably, some of you reading this column could very well be faced with the quandary I'm about to describe over this coming weekend when the Cubs come thumping into town in the Pirates' final series before the All Star Break.

Here is how it goes …

You are nestled into your seat inside PNC Park --- the greatest baseball park currently situated on Earth --- and you have a cold one and a hot dog in hand. It is early in the game and the Pirates are going through the first turn in the lineup. It's a wonderful night, the kind of Chamber of Commerce night all of us Pittsburghers dream of when we tell outsiders just how beautiful our city is.

Through the din of the crowd pipes in Tim DeBacco, the outstanding public address announcer for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

He booms, "Now batting for the Pittsburgh Pirates, No. 27, Jung Ho Kang!"

OK.

What do you do?

What will you do?

Will you clap wildly as you normally do for a man who has become a cult hero of sorts here in Pittsburgh; a man we saw go through that awful leg injury that ended his season in 2015?

Will you dial back your applause a bit?

Will you boo the man who is in the news for all the wrong reasons right now, even as just 48 hours ago you might have had a much different image of him?

For me, like I said, if I was going to one of this weekend's games as a fan and was faced with that situation, I don't know what I would do. My overwhelming thought is I'd sit there non-committal, neither clap nor boo but just sort of take it all in.

It's too early for me to take a side in all of this --- so I'd most likely just sit there and gauge what the popular opinion was and be intrigued by it.

There are so many more important aspects that will come out of the stunning news that arose Tuesday that Pirates third baseman Jung Ho Kang is being investigated as a "person of interest" for a June sexual assault in a Chicago hotel room in which the perpetrator met the alleged victim through a dating app. There is so much more --- both in the immediate and long-term --- that is of deeper importance.

But something that will interest me in the short term (and especially because I work in sports media) is how Kang will be received when he steps in to hit for that first time at PNC Park since his name was linked to a heinous act that was alleged to occur.

So what will you do?

How will you act?

Colin Dunlap is a featured columnist at CBSPittsburgh.com. He can also be heard weekdays from 5:40 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Sports Radio 93-7 "The Fan." You can e-mail him at colin.dunlap@cbsradio.com. Check out his bio here.

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