Is Major League Baseball trying to sweep this week’s incident at Fenway Park under the rug?
After Baltimore beat the hometown Red Sox in Boston on Monday, Orioles centerfielder Adam Jones told reporters he heard racist taunts from fans at Fenway.
The five-time all-star said he “was called the N-word a handful of times,” and also had a bag of peanuts thrown at him, calling it one of the worst cases of fan abuse he has heard in his 12-year career.
On Tuesday night, Bo-Sox fans responded by giving Jones a long standing ovation when he came to home plate for his first at-bat.
And Red Sox president Sam Kennedy said he is “sickened by the conduct of an ignorant few,” and added the team is considering possible punishments, one of which could be a lifetime ban, for fans who hurl racial insults at players.
Kennedy told the Boston Herald, “offensive language, racial taunts, slurs are unacceptable.”
I like what I’m hearing from Boston’s front office — they got ahead of this issue in a hurry.
But where is Major League Baseball in all of this?
Commissioner Rob Manfred called the incident “completely unacceptable,” and that his office has been in contact with the Red Sox.
That’s it?
Oh, there’s also a video on mlb.com showing Jones receiving a “warm ovation following Monday night’s incident.”
There’s no mention of what happened to Jones, or how Boston is dealing with the issue.
This is the league that broke the colour barrier for crying out loud, and all we get is that what happened to Jones was “completely unacceptable.”
What a pitiful response.
Comments