The discussion isn’t over until MLB, teams, and players make some meaningful moves.
Holy eephus. Not even a week had passed since Billy Bean died, and barely three days had gone by since I named Jarren Duran as a player who’d benefitted personally from Bean’s inclusion work…and you know what happened next. Duran instigated a Whole Thing by flinging a homophobic slur at a fan in the stands at Fenway.
For anyone who may be wondering why we’re still talking about this, or who feels like this should be over already:
- Because it’s important.
- This happened on Sunday; I write on Fridays. Big events have long tails.
- That’s what we do in baseball: observe events, get data, and then talk about it forever.
I’m leading with a light touch, which might belie my deep disappointment in this whole chain of events, but this has really bummed me out. I’ve cycled through a bunch of emotions: shock, disappointment, anger, self-protection, wanting payback…you’d better believe I wanted Duran to take his own words to heart—that he might look in the mirror and just feel “awful” about what he’d said.
He proved himself to be a bad teammate too—another surprise—by selfishly squeezing the team at a moment when they needed all hands on deck. Despite this, teammate Liam Hendricks essentially explained away his behavior. Yet another surprise, since Hendricks and his wife have enthusiastically supported the LGBTQ community in various ways over the years. I’m disappointed in Hendricks, who revealed himself to be a good teammate (if also a total enabler) but, in this case, a hollow ally.
Oh well, Billy Bean himself said homophobic slurs were part of sports and that it would take time and work to change that.
And change is what I’m interested in here.
While the PR statement released that day by the Red Sox organization contained more emotion than Chaim Bloom’s 2023 statement about Matt Dermody’s homophobic tweets (the really insufficient “It happened and we really regret it”) that tells me that the Red Sox weren’t about to make the same mistake twice. They used the “right” words, I’ll give them that, but it felt slippery, especially when Duran’s punishment was revealed.
Because although Duran was eligible to be disciplined by either the Red Sox or Major League Baseball (or maybe both? It’s not clear), everyone seemed to land on the most convenient solution! By having the Sox issue the suspension, the team was able to replace Duran on the roster while he was out. That wouldn’t have been on the table with an MLB suspension.
And the wheels just keep turning.
The Sox’s only real pain point in this was of the PR variety. Although there were some nail-biting moments in Monday’s game (the first of Duran’s two-game suspension), the Sox pulled it out and didn’t suffer at all in the standings during those two games. Surely Duran didn’t like losing his goal of playing in every game of the season, but outside of that, I don’t see that he’s significantly impacted, either. His lost salary from the suspension—about $8,500—will be donated to PFLAG but that’s pocket change in MLB. He may have lost some endorsement opportunities, but sales of his jersey are allegedly way up, so he’ll get others.
There was precedent for the punishment. In 2017, MLB suspended Matt Joyce for two games after slinging a homophobic slur at a fan. In 2021, the Blue Jays replicated the punishment for Kevin Pillar, who used the slur against another player. The lost salary in these cases was also donated to PFLAG.
Hold on, the exact same punishment is meted out in 2024 as in 2017? But…inflation! Right? Gas prices have gone up. The cost of buying groceries has increased just in the last few months, but this seven-year-old penalty still stands? That doesn’t seem right. But here we are.
The Red Sox, hearing the backlash and recognizing the quagmire they were in, gave Duran the opportunity to explain and apologize in his own words when they set up a meeting with the press. And the optics of that press session!
Duran didn’t care enough to consider that the “F*CK ‘EM” shirt he was wearing might be a statement in itself. The Red Sox PR department didn’t care enough to check in on him prior to the meeting with the press, even knowing that he wears the shirt every day. At least one Sox official was furious (but clearly not proactive enough to set the meeting up for success). This is PR 101, folks.
Safe to say, that fashion statement, intentional or not, didn’t go unnoticed. Here was the Los Angeles Times headline:
Red Sox suspend Jarren Duran for yelling anti-gay slur at fan. He shows up in NSFW T-shirt
Just what we need: LA taking us to task for this. I absolutely hate giving New York or LA a leg up on us in anything. And I hate it more when they’re right.
Duran screwed up. The Red Sox screwed up in handling his screw-up. And MLB clearly has no plan. During that meeting with the press, Duran was shockingly tone deaf by focusing on how he could use the “helpful information” he’d gotten in order to “take my best leap forward and go with what’s best to benefit from my mistakes.” Gone were most of the words, and sentiment, of the initial press release, when he (no, make that the Red Sox PR department) said he wanted to “educate myself” and seemingly, to atone.
But without the Red Sox PR department behind him, it was almost entirely all about him. Little to no mention of how he could learn from this in order to make things better for everyone. And that’s disappointing. At one point, he asked “About what?” when a reporter inquired whether he’d heard from MLB!
The press meeting was so off that one or more of the following was evident: no one helped him with talking points, Duran went somewhat off-book, he and/or the Red Sox didn’t care that much about it. PR 101 again! Duran also wondered aloud what was in store for him when it came time for an official discussion of this incident and aftermath, since the path forward in cases like this hasn’t been officially outlined by MLB. They’re leaning on what they decided in 2017 and they work off-the-cuff.
What kind of industry is this, where a grown adult can lob a slur at one of the customers at their workplace and get off so lightly? If John Henry is going to be selling the “Fenway experience” he’d better make sure the customers aren’t being insulted by the talent.
Because MLB and Henry certainly want my money. They want parents to bring their kids to games and then buy all kinds of merch. They want to grow the sport, which has been leaking fans for a while, lost to faster-paced games which not incidentally are also consciously more inclusive. They want broadcast deals so I’ll watch at home. They’ll sell me Pride merch…but it seems to end there. What’s the plan to grow the sport, to foster a love of the game and players, to be “family friendly” (as people love to say), to arrest this hurtful nonsense?
It’s time to get a little tougher and also a little more creative. Here’s the why: Fortune 500 companies have found it’s simply good business to work with the LGBTQ community. This includes offering a workplace that is welcoming to everyone, which was the bulk of Billy Bean’s work with MLB. The higher a company ranks on this list of the most successful companies, the higher the chance that they are inclusive. We’re a capitalist society; these companies aren’t doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. There’s money and stability at play here and MLB should note this. Fortune 500 companies like John Deere that have rolled back protections or initiatives are the outliers.
I love baseball, and I want to love loving it, which MLB sometimes makes difficult. Ultimately, I’m interested in moving forward, something others have talked about as well, including Alex Cora.
It’s hard to say we’re moving forward. We’re not moving forward; there’s a lot of work we have to do. Not only Jarren as a person, but us as a group. He made a big mistake. I’m going to…support him and help him to be better. – AC
So how can we do this—move forward, be better? I don’t have the answer but I have a lot of ideas, and I’m open for more. Is more robust education part of the solution, like what Bean was already doing? Is it stronger punishment for offenders? How about a longer suspension coupled with any or all of the following: time with a counselor, community service, time spent listening to and chatting with queer teens at a community center?
I used to teach art to queer youth and there’s no honesty like the kind you can find in a roomful of queer teenagers. Let Duran soak up some of that and see what he thinks afterwards.
Although there’s already an individual stick-and-carrot approach to avoiding these kinds of situations—after all, endorsements come more easily to players who avoid PR disasters—can it be more institutionalized? I don’t pretend to know what that might look like, but teams would pay attention if there were incentives to not have their players go rogue. Reward or punish the teams accordingly. What could that look like? Money talks, of course. Maybe a team is fined real money in addition to the player’s fine—or given more money to play with if they’ve done well. Lower the luxury tax a bit? Involve the draft or signing money, or home field advantage? Certainly don’t keep the status quo by allowing a replacement player while a player serves a suspension.
Here are a few ideas from what soccer is doing:
- MLS suspended a player who used a homophobic slur for three matches (that’s about 30% of their season), and required him to undergo training
- At their annual meeting in May 2024, all 211 FIFA member associations adopted a plan to tackle racist slurs.
- In the USL, a Division II pro soccer league in the US, a player allegedly hurled a homophobic slur in-game at a player on the opposing team. The circumstances were a bit different, but what I’d like to draw your attention to is the reaction of one of the coaches. Very simply put:
“We have to get this out of our game.” —Landon Donovan