Red Sox fan banned for life over alleged racial slur

During a Red SoxOrioles game Tuesday at Fenway Park, fans gave Baltimore’s Adam Jones an ovation in a show of support after the player said racist comments were directed at him in the stadium the night before.

That game also included an incident in which a Boston fan said another fan used a racial slur and the team announced Wednesday it had permanently banned the man accused of employing that language.

“The Red Sox organization will not tolerate the use of racial slurs at Fenway Park and we have apologized to those affected,” the team said in a statement. “There is no place for racial epithets at Fenway Park, in baseball or in our society. The Red Sox have turned the matter over to the Boston police department, which will further investigate with its civil rights unit and determine whether it merits further action.”

According to the Boston Globe, a fan named Calvin Hennick reported the incident Tuesday to an usher, who notified stadium security. The man who received the ban reportedly denied using the slur.

A Kenyan woman sang the national anthem before the game and afterward, Hennick said a man he described as white, middle-aged and wearing a Red Sox hat and Tshirt leaned over to him. The man, Hennick claimed in a Facebook post, used the N-word while disparaging the rendition of the anthem, saying the singer “n----ed it up.”

Hennick, a white man who was attending the game with his son and his father-in-law, who is black, told the Globe he was “aghast” at the remark.

“But I wanted to be 100 per cent sure I heard him right,” he said, so he asked the man about the specific language he’d used.

“Yes, that’s what I said and I stand by it,” Hennick said the man told him. When told that kind of language was not OK, the man reportedly said to Hennick, “Why not?”

After reporting the incident, Hennick and his family were moved to different seats, then he was asked to come to a concourse to identify the man and repeat the language he’d heard.

“I was totally happy to do that, because if he was going to deny it, I wanted him to deny it to my face like the coward he was,” Hennick said.

“The offending individual was promptly ejected from the ballpark and has since been notified he is no longer welcome at Fenway Park,” the Red Sox said in their statement.

Red Sox president Sam Kennedy said to his knowledge this was the first time the team had banned a fan from Fenway Park for life.

“I’m here to send a message loud and clear that the behaviour, the language, the treatment of others that you’ve heard about and read about is not acceptable,” he said.

Kennedy had made a point of approaching Jones and shaking the outfielder’s hand before Tuesday’s game.

The Orioles star said before Tuesday’s game he thought the way the Red Sox and MLB “got ahead” of the aftermath of Monday’s incident “was tremendous.”

I’m here to send a message loud and clear that the behaviour ... you’ve heard about and read about is not acceptable.