Former major leaguer on A’s coach Ryan Christenson: ‘That’s just so far from who he is’

Former major league player David Newhan got a call from A’s bench coach Ryan Christenson late Thursday evening. It wasn’t unusual for Christenson to call — the best friends of 25 years talk regularly — but this time was different.

Christenson didn’t need guidance, he didn’t want sympathy, he just felt remorseful. A video clip from a telecast of the A’s game that afternoon had shown Christenson making a gesture that looked like a Nazi salute.

“It’s just so far from his intent and who he is as a person,” Newhan said Friday night by phone from his home in Southern California. “There’s not a bigoted bone in his body and it just makes me feel bad that he’s having to go through this right now.”

The two men, now 46, go way back. After playing two years at Pepperdine together, they were drafted by the A’s in 1995. They were in the minors for three seasons together until Newhan was traded to the San Diego Padres in 1997. They were best man in each other’s weddings. They are like family.

“He’s everything you’d hope for in a best friend,” Newhan said. “Supportive, loyal, would do anything for you.”

Newhan hadn’t seen the video when Christenson called, so he called it up while Christenson broke it down, explaining that A’s reliever Liam Hendriks had introduced a karate-chop style high five, a new type of individualized celebration in the age of social distancing, and that’s how it all started.

Christenson told Newhan he might be dragged into the situation, because he’d told a reporter that they were best friends and that Newhan is Jewish. Some of my best friends are Jewish. It was all such a mess.

Newhan never doubted Christenson’s heart. What he saw in the video clip was so far out of character, Newhan said, he might have mistaken it for Photoshop.

“If there was any kind of intent behind it then, yeah, that’d be scary,” Newhan said. “With Ryan, it’s the complete opposite. It’s so obvious that he was caught off guard and then offended himself that he even did that… That’s just so far from who he is and what he stands for.”

Newhan’s father, Hall of Fame sportswriter Ross Newhan of the Los Angeles Times, has known Christenson and his family since the boys met in travel ball. He was stunned when Christenson’s face and the term “Nazi salute” popped up on his social media feed.

“The Nazi salute, that sends chills down our spines,” said Newhan, whose father-in-law was the only member of his family to escape the Holocaust.

The elder Newhan was puzzled by what he saw in the video clip. But he wasn’t chilled. He has known Christenson too long. He knew there had to be an explanation.

In a statement made through the A’s late Thursday night, Christenson apologized and attempted to explain. Friday, A’s manager Bob Melvin and outfielder Mark Canha voiced their support for Christenson.

“Ryan Christenson is fully supported by everybody in our clubhouse,” said Melvin, one of seven Jewish managers in baseball history. “They know who he is. So do I. Obviously it didn’t look great, but that was not his intent at all. I know that for a fact.”

“A lot of things get said in a locker room, clubhouse when reporters aren’t around that can be off-color,” Canha said. “I’ve never known Ryan to even joke or do anything. I’ve never known Ryan to slip up once.”

Christenson has been with the A’s for 14 years. He played parts of six seasons in the majors, a light-hitting centerfielder who could cover a lot of ground, then began managing in the Oakland farm system in 2013.

Newhan played parts of eight seasons in the majors, the best of them coming in Baltimore, where he had a .311/.361/.453 slash line in 2004. A minor league manager for the A’s in 2014, he spent two seasons as a hitting coach for the Detroit Tigers and currently works for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

“We should stand up for people and be sensitive to each other,” he said, referring to events of this week. “But, let’s be logical and with intent behind things and figure out what did happen. Because what you think you saw might be smoke and mirrors.”