Joe Maddon, fulfilling his duty to confront racist jerks

During a Sunday Spring Training game at Charlotte Sports Park in Florida, Tampa Bay Rays  manager Joe Maddon heard a fan berating Rays centerfielder B.J. Upton with a racial insult. Maddon summoned stadium security and had the fan thrown out of the park.

This may have happened before, but I can’t recall a similar incident. Racist catcalls and epithets are rarer at baseball games than they once were; they are far from gone. Baseball players have to endure a certain amount of abuse, true, but not this kind. Heaping racist insults on an athlete from the safety of the stands is cowardly as well as uncivil, and the First Amendment doesn’t extend to “fighting words” in a private venue.  Every manager, coach, usher and spectator should follow Madden’s lead.

The fan, by the way, denies Maddon’s account. Since baseball managers are not in the habit of ejecting fans for nothing, I find the denial less than credible.