What the fan said was relatively harmless.
On Sunday afternoon, a frustrated individual at Fenway Park yelled in the direction of Red Sox center fielder Jarren Duran, who was in the middle of a hit against the Houston Astros.
“Tennis racket. Tennis racket. You need a tennis racket.”
Nothing particularly sharp or offensive. Nothing about the player’s family. Just a typical, common chirping.
Duran’s reaction was disproportionately volatile. He turned toward the stands while rummaging through the box, looked at the fan in question, and hurled an anti-gay slur in the questioner’s direction.
Because Duran was on base, within earshot of a multitude of microphones, his homophobic language was picked up on the Red Sox broadcast. Before the game even ended, Duran’s comment was already circulating on social media.
The team issued some statements after the game, one in the name of Duran and one for the organization.
On Monday, the team announced it has suspended its All-Star center fielder for two games without pay. The money Duran would have received – about $8,500 – will be donated to PFLAGan organization dedicated to LGBTQ+ advocacy.
The punishment will take effect immediately, leaving Duran, who was on track to play in all 162 games this season, unavailable Monday and Tuesday against the Texas Rangers. It’s an obvious blow to Boston’s lineup; the team has lost four in a row and is three games out of the playoffs.
Just a week ago, the MLB world mourned the death of Billy Bean, the second openly gay retired player in the league’s history. Bean, who died at age 60 of leukemia, retired in 1995 and later worked at the league for 10 years, starting in 2014 as an Inclusion Ambassador and later becoming the league’s Senior Vice President of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and Assistant Special. to the commissioner. His behind-the-scenes impact was profound. Bean would travel around the country to talk to players, building networks and relationships along the way. By telling his own story as a once closeted gay man in baseball, he hoped to educate the next generation on how to create a more accepting atmosphere around the game he loved.
This incident with Duran is an unfortunate reminder that the cause to which Bean dedicated the last decade of his life remains woefully unfinished. The word used by Duran is simply unacceptable. He overstepped his bounds and now must face the consequences.
This also isn’t the first time in recent memory that a major league player has been suspended for using a homophobic slur. Indeed, there are precedents here. Matt Joyce welcomed two players in 2017, as did Kevin Pillar in 2021.
The fact that the insult Duran hurled is still extremely common in MLB clubs and beyond doesn’t change the dynamic. Not at all. It just goes to show how deeply this problem is rooted. To wit, Duran was so comfortable “in the heat of the moment” that he used the word home plate during a season in which the Red Sox are constantly being recorded by a Netflix crew.
And the horde of individuals on the Internet trying to classify all of this as a “non-issue” is completely irrelevant. It’s simply a non-issue for them. Just because an offensive word was once common on the high school playground doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to use it in 2024. It wasn’t even acceptable in 1984. Society progresses, moves forward, develops into a more caring, loving version of itself. – or at least it should. Anything less is, at best, unnecessarily closed-minded and, at worst, outright bullying.
But in practice: you can’t say what Duran said, as a high-level professional athlete, as a public figure, and not expect there to be consequences. And that’s a good thing.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Hopefully Duran learned his lesson. He was on pace to play in all 162 games, something he admitted several times was his goal. That’s out the window now. His apology on Monday — in which he claimed to have never used the word before, something that seems highly unlikely given how easily it came out of his mouth — doesn’t move the needle. Only time and a genuine desire to improve can do this.
One last point: Duran is not a victim here, no matter how many keyboard warriors try to make him famous. By suspending him, the Red Sox turned Duran into a cause célèbre within the broader contemporary culture war. That a significant portion of people saw that slander video and their immediate reaction was to defend Duran and defend him as a crusader against the invading wave of modern awakening? This is just a bummer.
Going through baseball, through life, with care and acceptance by others is not a political issue.
In fact, it shouldn’t even be a question.
