Fans stand up for Jones
Cheers greet OF on first at-bat
As Adam Jones stepped to the plate in the first inning last night, he kicked at his bat with the tips of his shoes. His name was announced, and there were a few boos from the Fenway Park crowd.
But there were cheers too. And some fans were standing up. Red Sox starter Chris Sale, who typically works with very little delay, began taking his sweet time, wandering around the mound to let the ovation build.
Jones grabbed the bill of his helmet and tipped it ever so slightly. He looked toward the mound and nodded. This was Fenway’s way of apologizing.
Cheering his three-pitch strikeout was its way of getting back to business as usual.
“I expect to be booed, and I expect the fans to tell me I suck, as normal,” Jones said. “Just keep the ignorant comments to yourself.”
Jones’ comments on Monday night, going public about hearing the N-word from Fenway fans and being nearly hit by a thrown bag of peanuts, started the kind of conversation that this game, this country and this city needs to have a little more often.
Three weeks ago, Jackie Robinson Day celebrated how far we’ve come.
Monday showed there’s still a long way to go.
“How do I feel about it?” Chris Young said. “I feel like it’s terrible. It’s terrible, but it’s realistic. It’s nothing that I didn’t know existed. I can’t say that I’m completely shocked that it’s happened because it’s happened before. Luckily, it’s coming to light.”
Shame of it is, there’s little surprise it’s come to light here in Boston.
A fan shouting racial slurs at an opponent is not typical of this fan base, but it has become stereotypical.
“You get called all kind of names, called the N-word when you go to Boston,” Yankees starter CC Sabathia told reporters in New York. “We know. There’s 62 of us (black players in the major leagues), and we all know, when you go to Boston, expect it.”
When the Sox began looking into Monday’s incident, team president Sam Kennedy met with some of their own players. David Price has spoken about hearing racial taunts at Fenway last season.
“Our players acknowledged in our meeting that they have heard inappropriate remarks in this ballpark (and) in other ballparks,” Kennedy said. “Again, that’s why I opened my remarks today to say how saddened and disappointed I am to hear that.”
The irresponsible thing now would be to back away from that reputation and pretend it doesn’t exist.
Of course, most fans who come to Fenway on a given night have no intention of shouting a racial slur, and presumably no desire to do so either, but let’s not pretend those ugly thoughts and words don’t exist. Let’s not be so naïve as to assume Jones is lying or looking for attention or trying to settle a score.
This is our reality, even 70 years after Jackie Robinson.
“It’s disheartening, it really is,” Jackie Bradley Jr. said. “I was in that same outfield at the same exact time A.J. was. So, what made it any different that he was called a name and I wasn’t?
“And that’s not everyone. I don’t want that to be something where one person dictates how everyone feels because it’s not the truth. But I feel like that person, if that’s really how they feel, then we should all know who it is. If he feels so strongly enough to share that, I feel like his coworkers should know. His family, if they don’t already, (should) know. It’s hurtful. And, that kind of action, it will not be tolerated.”
On Twitter, Mookie Betts encouraged Red Sox fans to “literally stand up” for Jones. He wanted an ovation so this city could show it’s better than some guy in the outfield seats with a cup full of beer and a head full of dust.
Jones seemed to already know that. He said he didn’t need an ovation and wasn’t looking for special treatment. He didn’t believe that one ignorant fan spoke for everyone in Boston.
But if anyone really questions the things he’d heard?
“I wish you guys (could) just wear my shoes for 24 hours,” he said. “They’re comfortable.”