For my final column of this semester, I wanted to write about something positive. I hoped to focus on reasons for Boston Red Sox fans to be optimistic heading into this summer, like the dominance of newcomer Chris Sale or how young phenom Andrew Benintendi seems to be the real deal.
Unfortunately, Red Sox Nation ruined that plan. On Monday night at Fenway Park, sports fandom and rivalry were taken too far. And it must be addressed.
During the Baltimore Orioles’ 5-2 victory over the Sox, Orioles’ outfielder Adam Jones was the recipient of numerous racist jeers from fans in the bleachers. Jones, who is black, said fans called him the “N-word” multiple times, and one fan even threw a bag of peanuts at him. There is absolutely no excuse for such disgusting behavior.
“I just go out and play baseball,” Jones said in an interview with ESPN. “It’s unfortunate that people need to resort to those type of epithets to degrade another human being. I’m trying to make a living for myself and for my family.”
It is more than unfortunate. It is shameful, upsetting and downright unacceptable.
Jones, throughout his 12-year career, has always been the consummate professional. He shines on the field, and is an even better man for it. He has served as one of Major League Baseball’s greatest ambassadors in recent years, and he even represented Team USA in the World Baseball Classic with classy behavior and big time plays. He is a star player and more importantly, a star person.
It is heartbreaking whenever racism rears its ugly head. But to see a player and person as exemplary as Jones becomes a target for hatred and bigotry is truly disappointing. Even then, celebrity status aside, nobody deserves that treatment.
That this whole situation comes with the backdrop of the emerging rivalry between these two teams is impossible to ignore. While I sincerely hope that this incident is unrelated, Monday’s game was indeed the first between the Red Sox and Orioles since the contentious series that included Manny Machado’s controversial slide, Dustin Pedroia’s injury and Matt Barnes’ suspension for throwing at Machado in response to the slide. If these actions were intended as retaliation by a group of Red Sox fans, then I am even more appalled. This is not who we are, Boston.
Following the events of Monday night, the Red Sox organization issued a statement: “The Red Sox have zero tolerance for such inexcusable behavior, and our entire organization and our fans are sickened by the conduct of an ignorant few.”
Obviously, the Red Sox organization is not at fault. Issuing an official apology is a necessary first step, and the team and the league will look more into what happened. Hopefully, this never occurs again.
But the question is where do we go from here? It is 2017, and African American athletes still suffer from the evils of racism and ignorance at sports venues.
I recently re-watched “42,” the 2013 biopic about Jackie Robinson. The film poignantly depicts the story of Robinson’s journey as he broke baseball’s color barrier. Robinson faced many obstacles, both on and off the field, as he overcame immense amounts of racism and hatred. What happened on Monday is eerily similar to many of the movie’s more powerful scenes. Too similar.
However, the team and the league need to do more than just issue an apology. Fans need to step up and show Jones this is not what sports are about. Providing Jones with a standing ovation for the rest of this series each time he comes to the plate is one suggestion. The fans who were responsible for this should also face some type of severe punishment, more than just a police escort from the stadium. Shouting slurs and throwing peanuts at a man is a hate crime and has no place at an MLB game — that should be a venue where politics are left behind.
About 70 years after Robinson’s Major League debut, and here we are again. A talented, respected, undeserving black man gets showered with racist slurs at a baseball game. I cannot remember a time I felt this ashamed to be a Bostonian or a Red Sox fan.
Boston has its own complicated history with racism. That is another topic for another time. But Monday night’s incident serves as a potent reminder that as a country, a sport and a city, we have a long way to go. We are better than this. We have to be.
