As I alluded to in an earlier post today, Boston Red Sox star Jarren Duran was caught on a mic in yesterday’s loss to the Houston Astros snapping at an obnoxious Fenway Park fan who was taunting him at the end of a frustrating game for the outfielder. You won’t learn this from any media covering the incident, but Duran said, “Shut up, you fucking fag.”
There is no question that baseball players say much worse in their private interactions with each other, including on the field, but because this was picked up electronically, and because Duran knew that the Red Sox, maybe even more than the rest of Major League Baseball, are lapdogs to all progressive activist groups, immediately issued an abject apology, saying, “During tonight’s game, I used a truly horrific word when responding to a fan. I feel awful knowing how many people I offended and disappointed,” the grovel continued. “I apologize to the entire Red Sox organization, but more importantly to the entire LGBTQ community. Our young fans are supposed to be able to look up to me as a role model, but tonight I fell far short of that responsibility.”
Then he leaped to his death off of the top of the famous Fenway left field wall. Kidding. “I will use this opportunity to educate myself and my teammates and to grow as a person,” Duran concluded.
Not good enough! The Red Sox issued a pandering statement of their own, saying, “The Red Sox addressed this incident with Jarren immediately following today’s game. We echo Jarren’s apology to our fans, especially to the LGBTQ community. We strive to be an organization that welcomes all fans to Fenway Park, and we will continue to educate our employees, players, coaches and staff on the importance of inclusivity.”
The team fined Duran and suspended him for two games.
In doing so, it essentially announced that soothing hurt LGBTQ feelings and acting as the group’s agent of vengeance is more important to the team than fulfilling its mission, which is winning games and championships. In the same game in which Duran snapped at the fan (I have seen no evidence that he is or appeared to be gay), the Red Sox lost their fourth game in a row. Their new starting pitcher had suffered an injury in the first inning that might finish him for the season. The team is missing several key players at the moment, and if the current losing streak continues, its chances at a play-off spot could be ended quickly: right now, the Red Sox are still legitimate contenders for a Wild Card slot.
Duran has arguably been the team’s most valuable player this season, excelling at the plate, in the field, and running the bases. Suspending him when the team is at a critical juncture in its play-off pursuit shows warped organizational and leadership priorities, and in effect punishes the team, the fans, the city and the franchise for a single player’s emotional outburst just to win brownie points with the woke, the politically correct and the language police. Virtue-signaling is a higher priority to the Boston Red Sox than winning.
Sure Duran should be fined. Even when they are abusive, fans must not be treated with contempt or disrespect to the extent that Duran took it. Fine him. Spit on him, call him “Stinky,” fill his locker with manure, draw mustaches on his baseball cards, make him stay at a Motel 6 on the road for the rest of the season or play the outfield in a tutu all of August, but for the team to do anything that harms its chances of winning is irresponsible, cowardly, stupid and wrong.
Apparently Boston’s brass felt a precedent had been established because a couple of years ago another player (Kevin Pillar) was suspended two games by his team for using the same “homophobic” slur. Well, the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade because it was a bad precedent, and so was that.
I’m suspending the Boston Red Sox for the next two games for incompetence and caring more about a single abusive fan’s hurt boo-boo than the millions of Red Sox fans who couldn’t give a rip what Jarren Duran says to assholes shouting at him from the safety of the stands but who devote a lot of time and passion to caring what their team does on the field.
Ethics Alarms 
I wonder what the punishment would have been if he had called the fan a nigger.
As for the deserved punishment for that, I think a fine would also be the appropriate one.
From his wiki page: Duran is of Mexican descent through his father, allowing him to represent Mexico in the 2923 World Baseball Classic.
I’ll play the DEI card for him: He’s Hispanic. (Okay, only half and raised in Southern California, that’s kind of the U.S., but still, according to the Kamala Harris rule, he can claim he’s Mexican.) Mexicans are Catholic and don’t really approve of homosexuals and homosexuality. They have a tendency to beat homosexuals up, or worse. As I recall, the Cuban guys I grew up with contemptuously referred to homosexuals as “maricon.” Therefore, we should honor Jarren’s Hispanic and Mexican heritage, after all, his Mexican heritage is superior to United States heritage and culture because, well, it’s, you know, not American, and, therefore superior. I think the appropriate response to the situation would be for the Bosox to have a Mexican Heritage night to pander to all the Mexicans in the Bay State, like the Diamondbacks do almost more nights than not. Jarren could then issue a statement starting off with “Beisbol been beddy, beddy good, to mi.”
I’m also a little bemused trying to figure out whether the fact the fan was evidently not gay should be taken into account somehow. Hah.