The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

I thought the Boston Red Sox were well past their sordid corporate history of bigotry and ugly fans’ and players’ misbehavior. New ownership since 2002 has largely been a breath of fresh air. Gone are the overt racist ways of owner Tom Yawkey, who notably turned down opportunities to hire Jackie Robinson, Willie Mays and Sam Jethroe – on the basis of race. The Sox were the last team in baseball to hire a Black player (Pumpsie Green in 1959). Yawkey himself routinely used slurs and helped fund racist politicians in South Carolina, his home state. (For more of this disgusting history, see sports writer Howard Manley’s great book “Shut Out.“)

Obnoxious hometown fans have never made Boston proud. Former Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia said in 2017 that Boston was the only park in which he had been called the n-word. In 2020, all-star outfielder Torii Hunter told ESPN he was “called the N-word in Boston 100 times. Little kids, with their parents right next to them…” African-American players have been known to have no-trade-to-Boston clauses in their contracts because of racist remarks and actions by Fenway fans.

The new Red Sox owners have a policy of imposing lifetime bans on fans displaying such offensive behavior. In 2018, the city responded to a Red Sox request and changed the name of the street from Yawkey Way to Jersey Street as a way of turning its back on the park’s previous ownership and signaling its commitment to be welcoming to all. Two years later, the Red Sox Foundation and Fenway Sports Management formed a Racial and Social Justice Committee to institutionalize such inclusivity. In 2022, the team fired a minor league player for a string of racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic tweets.

Racist fans are bad enough. We don’t need bigotry or discrimination against any “other” group coming from the players. But there must still be something in the water. Last week, up at bat, All Star outfielder Jarren Duran called out a homophobic slur against a heckling fan in the game against the Houston Astros. (The quote was “shut up you fucking faggot.”) Different target; same old hate speech.

Red Sox management went into action. Duran issued a statement saying all the right things. He said he knew it was a “horrific” thing to say, and was sorry he had fallen down in his role as a model for young people. He apologized to management and to the LGBTQ community, etc. The team suspended Duran for two days and contributed some of his pay to an organization working to further the fight against homophobia. The punishment was in line with the two-to-three days’ suspensions imposed by other teams on other MLB players for similar behavior.

Should they have done more? Should the team have fired him as they did Brett Netzer, the Portland Sea Dogs player who persisted at tweeting hate messages? Clearly not. He’s no Jimmy Snyder, Dave Chappelle or Nick Fuentes. Duran’s outburst seems to have been a one-off, not a continuing pattern of behavior and doesn’t deserve an overreaction. But a fine of $8172 is the merest slap on the wrist for a guy whose 2024 salary is $760,000. Certainly a heftier fine could deliver a message with more impact. But management should also have required he spend a number of days in community service at some LGBTQ support organization, to be served after the season, which could provide a real-life educational experience and give him a broader understanding of our shared humanity.

Let’s face it. Many of today’s players, skilled as they often are at what they do, are also overpaid, overgrown adolescents. The post-Yawkey team has articulated its commitment to a certain set of values. If it is to be more than window dressing, that commitment has to be worked on constantly, for the institution as a whole and for individual members who still don’t get it. The recent incident shows, as team officials have acknowledged, there’s still a way to go in achieving the goal of tolerance and inclusion.