A few Boston Red Sox fans exhibited extremely boorish behavior toward Adam Jones during Monday’s game. The ESPN article sums up the situation well. The Red Sox front office is upset, the players are upset, the politicians are upset, the commissioner’s office is upset, the union is upset. Everyone is saying the right things, and it should be clear to anyone paying attention that no one appreciates your racial slurs.
I’ve attended quite a few games at Fenway in my life, and seen this boorish behavior. I also saw the way the Red Sox handle it improve over the years. In the early 80s not much was done, but by the middle of the decade, Boston hired local college football players to be enforcers. If someone was acting inappropriately in the stands, you could go down for a snack, tell an usher what was going on, and two of these men would come up to the section and stare at the offending fan. That usually stopped it. Sometimes, however, the person didn’t stop, and the enforcers would haul the offender out. I believe now there is a number you can text, and cameras keep an eye on pretty much everyone in the stands looking for trouble. So I’m a bit surprised someone was allowed to go on like that.
It also appears the Red Sox fans have a drinking problem:
Kennedy denied a report that there were 60 ejections at Monday night’s game, saying instead there were 34, including 20 for alcohol-related incidents and two for marijuana.
Again, the Red Sox have tried to curtail this. A person drinking can only buy two beers at a time, and the suds are super expensive. Yet, that doesn’t stop some fans from buying two, drinking them in an inning, then going down for two more. For seven innings. Do the Red Sox need to install a facial recognition system to limit people to two beers every four innings? I’d really love a team to try a home stand without beer to see if fan ejections go down and if fans get a more pleasant experience.
Update: CC Sabathia and Delino Deshields talk about their experiences:
Talking Tuesday before the team’s game against Toronto in New York, Sabathia said in his big league career “I’ve never been called the N-word” anywhere but in Boston.
While Sabathia said he’s only been taunted that way in Boston, Texas Rangers outfielder Delino DeShields said Tuesday that he was subjected to racist comments in 2015 at Yankee Stadium.
The Red Sox have stuff all over Facebook today about how to contact security – a number to call, a number to text, an app. I try to buy tickets to the family section where no beer is allowed when I take my kids to Fenway – much more pleasant that way.
But this is about more than alcohol – it’s about setting the expectation that using racial slurs will get you kicked out of the park and banned. No employer I’ve ever had would let a customer shout racial slurs at their employees.
When I worked at U South Carolina in the late 1990s before every ball game (which start mid February) there was a warning against vulgar or racist words. I never heard anything that crossed the line. Instead, students above the visitors dugout got creative with their heckling.
So CC despite coming to Fenway for the last 9 years as a hated Yankee has never had a racial slur directed at him.
Fans of a team with 3-4 white position players on a given night are racists, and the racists are retiring the number in June of a fan favorite who happens to be of African heritage.
Look, with 3 million fans going in and out of Fenway each year you are probably going to get a couple of jerks now and then. I suppose a couple of them attended last night but for 20 million a year its a price you pay
I just don’t believe multiple individuals were out there hurling racial abuse at him without there being a single ejection for that (according to Kennedy) . Plenty of security at Fenway especially in the bleachers. Frankly, besides the fear of being ejected the fact some big person of color might stomp on you us enough of a deterrent. Its not a lilly white crowd although Fenway probably is whiter than most.
Boston of course gets its reputation from the tensions resulting from bussing in the 70’s, and so whenever this stuff happens it gets blown up out of all proportion. I have attended maybe a dozen games over the last 20 years there and never heard a racial slur , although not in bleacher territory. The 70’s were a much different story
Its interesting this comes up shortly after Prices allegations a couple of months ago. CC says he never heard anything since becoming a Yankee. Crawford only mentioned being called a Monday at a minor league rehab start. Now all of a sudden there is a rash of it at Fenway?
Of course, a nation that votes for Trump , I guess anything is possible. But why would a racist love Latinos of African heritage while hating on homegrown. If anything you would think dark Latinos would be getting more of the heat.
As for the drinking , many come to games pre lubricated or smuggle it in. Not many getting drunk on that watered down stuff that costs 12 bucks a pop. Also, games are longer so fans can get drunker , especially if they bring their own (security might catch some of it but the smart ones get it through)
The bolded text in your post only works as an appeal if the person in question cares what other people think. I posit that someone willing to make racist statements in public in 2017 is at least as likely to think he’s being muzzled by “political correctness” run amok.