This week, Yu Darvish, the Los Angeles Dodger pitcher who is half Japanese, said he was trying to “stay positive” after a star player for the Houston Astros, Yuli Gurriel, mocked him with a racist slur and slant-eyes gesture during Game 3 of the World Series.

Dodger fans were not so forgiving. When Gurriel came to the plate in Game 6, the Dodger pitcher, Rich Hill, paused long enough before delivering his first pitch so that Los Angeles fans could unleash an extra-long cascade of jeering and cursing at Gurriel. The crowd was every bit as vociferous in Game 7 when Gurriel came up against Darvish again — even after Gurriel tipped his hat in a conciliatory gesture to the pitcher.

I’m not big on baseball, but I became a Dodgers fan this week, and I think a lot of Asians and Asian-Americans joined me. We were disgusted by Gurriel’s ugly behavior and winced in unison as Darvish took a drubbing from the Astros in Game 7. (The Astros won the game and the series.) But our dismay runs deeper: Many Asian people are upset about the slick and spineless handling of the incident by the commissioner of Major League Baseball, Rob Manfred.

Let me take you back to a Catholic-school classroom in central New Jersey in the 1960s where I’m sitting at my desk, my face aflame.