Tampa mayor: Tom Brady was told he couldn't work out in park closed because of coronavirus
Tom Brady has stayed in the headlines since leaving the New England Patriots for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
This is one he’d probably like to have back.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor spoke with St. Petersburg Mayor Rick Kriseman on a public video briefing Monday, and the city’s most famous new resident became a topic of conversation.
Tom Brady was trying to work out at the park
Castor relayed a story about a recent run-in a parks employee had with the NFL quarterback.
Tampa Mayor Jane Castor says a city parks employee saw someone working out in a park downtown.
The employee went over to let the person know the park was closed to help stop the spread of #coronavirus.
It was new Bucs QB Tom Brady. https://t.co/VzAvglVrVt pic.twitter.com/tBA0c028gR— Heather Monahan (@HeatherMonahan_) April 20, 2020
“I always tell people, ‘Now I’m not one to gossip so you didn’t hear this from me,'” Castor told Kriseman. “But you know our parks are closed down so a lot of our parks staff, they patrol around just to make sure that people aren’t doing contact sports and things and saw an individual working out in one of our downtown parks.
“And she went over to tell him that it was closed and it was Tom Brady.”
But that wasn’t all. Apparently Brady didn’t get off with just a warning.
‘Well, there you go,” Castor continued after Kriseman reacted. “He has been cited.”
She then went on to talk about “how wonderful our sports teams are to step up.”
On Tuesday morning, the city claimed that Castor meant that Brady was “sighted,” not “cited.”
👀 SIGHTED! 👀
To clear up any confusion, @Buccaneers QB @TomBrady was SIGHTED in one of our 194 beautiful parks. He was not cited as some media outlets have reported.
We are excited to welcome Tom & everyone back to all of our parks once we have punted COVID-19 downfield! 🏈 pic.twitter.com/EH13MmlAgx— City of Tampa (@CityofTampa) April 21, 2020
Brady has not publicly commented on the mayor’s statement.
Nobody’s exempt
If Castor wanted to make a point that nobody’s exempt from coronavirus rules, then well done. If her goal was to awkwardly put Brady on blast while talking about the “wonderful” sports teams in Tampa. Well, mission accomplished there too.
But the bottom line is that everybody’s going a little stir crazy under stay-at-home COVID-19 orders. But we all need to make sure we’re doing our part to flatten the curve — even Tom Brady.
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