Major League Baseball has a fraught, and often disappointing, relationship with diversity and inclusion. Throughout the league’s history, it has had moments when it served as an important catalyst for progressive societal change, with integration acting as the most powerful and enduring example. But while these moments revealed baseball’s potential as a force for change, the game has also ignored and marginalized parts of its fanbase. Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier 71 years ago; MLB’s approach to social progress since then could best be described as halting. Whether through neglect or outright hostility, and despite more recent efforts to proactively recognize include diverse communities, the league, its clubs, and players have often failed to make the ballpark equally inviting to all fans who wish to cheer on the home nine. In the past several weeks, we’ve seen that enmity take a new form–one that is very much a product of its time, yet is still rooted in age-old bigotries.

It started during the 2018 All-Star Game, when Josh Hader’s racist, homophobic, and sexist tweets from 2011 and 2012 were uncovered following a relief appearance in which he gave up a three-run home run that put the American League ahead.

It’s not the first time a ballplayer’s unsavory tweets have been unearthed. For instance, after being selected by the Rockies in the first round of this year’s draft, Ryan Rolison had to apologize for a tweet from 2012 expressing a desire to see President Barack Obama assassinated. Hader’s case seemed different, though. Many were struck by both the sheer volume of tweets Hader had sent and their profoundly offensive nature. And of course, there is the fact that Hader is currently one of baseball’s top relievers.

Speaking to media after the game, Hader offered the following explanation for the tweets:

“You know, it was something that happened when I was 17 years old. As a child, I was immature, and I obviously said some things that were inexcusable. That doesn’t reflect on who I am as a person today, and that’s just what it is. Obviously, when you’re a kid, you just tweet what’s on your mind, and you know, that’s what’s on.”

Both Major League Baseball and the Brewers released statements on the matter, with MLB calling the tweets “unacceptable” but noting Hader “took the necessary step of expressing remorse for his highly offensive and hurtful language.”

The Brewers offered similar sentiments, calling the tweets “inexcusable,” while also asserting Hader has taken responsibility for them and claiming that they are not “representative of his beliefs.” Hader received no punishment from the Brewers. MLB mandated that he undergo sensitivity training, which includes meeting with MLB’s ambassador for inclusion—and one of the few openly gay former players—Billy Bean. In his first appearance after the discovery of his tweets, a mere four days following the All-Star Game, a Miller Park crowd gave Hader a standing ovation.

Hader was far from alone in his indiscretions. Following the incident, tweets from a number of other players surfaced that contained similarly hateful language. Each revelation followed a familiar pattern, from the nature of the tweets to the responses of Major League Baseball and each player’s team.

It’s very easy to track down old tweets; all one has to do is run a simple search for certain words or phrases. In this age of social media, both current and future players have spent the majority of their lives on platforms such as Twitter, sharing jokes and memes, and potentially, using hateful language. As we look ahead to baseball’s future, it seems inevitable that we will see similar tweets uncovered, and watch as other players are called to account for their behavior online. These incidents carry very real stakes for the league, its players, and just as importantly, its fans.

When confronting Trea Turner about his tweets, Nationals manager Dave Martinez reportedly told the shortstop, “You hurt people. Real people.”

It may seem obvious, yet it’s something that appears to have gotten lost in the shuffle: Even when slurs aren’t directed at a specific person or levied against a member of the group it’s intended for, they cause real harm to real people. And it is these real people—people of color, women, and LGBTQIA+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual) fans, not to mention those whose identities traverse those demographic boundaries—whose voices are most crucial in the conversation surrounding the bigoted words and Twitter misdeeds of major league baseball players. We sought out several such fans, hoping to give room to their voices and understand how it feels when something you love so profoundly fails your community and your fandom.

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Baseball’s history, both ancient and all too recent, is rife with bigotry, from banning black players and women to the decades it took to phase out a racist caricature like Chief Wahoo. As one LGBTQIA fan put it, bigotry among ballplayers is not “any more pronounced in MLB than in any similar demographic segment of society.” But at a time when MLB is touting its efforts to better include historically marginalized fans, the recent incidents involving players’ tweets have left fans from those communities wondering how they truly fit into the picture.

This recent string of incidents has left many marginalized fans not angry as one might expect, but disappointed and tired, worn down by the prospect of facing slurs every day.

A Hardball Times Update by Rachael McDaniel Goodbye for now.

“It always seems like there’s a reminder that I’m not exactly a first-class fan in the eyes of baseball and I’ve known this for a while now,” Baseball Prospectus contributor Demetrius Bell said.

Bell’s sentiments are echoed in a lot of fellow fans’ minds.

“Reading these tweets made by athletes I admire and get paid to play a sport I love, and then seeing people, fans, defend them makes me feel unwanted, hated, and sometimes even targeted,” a queer Latinx fan, who preferred to remain anonymous, said. “The league needs to set the tone and say they will not accept this from its players. Fans have been banned for yelling racial slurs at players before. I can see that that isn’t the same situation, but sensitivity training? Really?”

Another LGBTQIA fan noted that, “None of the offenders have come out and truly proven to me that they’re different, that they’ve changed, that they’re willing to open a dialogue and work on the problem within their sport.”

“When MLB started announcing some Pride nights, I was so excited for my sport that I almost cried, but honestly…I don’t think I’m comfortable going,” the LGBTQIA fan said. “I’m not sure the environment at an event like that would be safe for me.”

Even those who are not usually the target of animosity, such as a queer lifelong Yankees fan, Mitchell, who defines himself as a “cis white dude in a straight-passing relationship,” have begun to feel the effects of baseball’s bigotry.

“I’m…not entirely used to feeling excluded the way I’ve been feeling from MLB lately,” Mitchell said in a direct message.

The recent exposure of players’ past bigoted tweets has made it “a luxury to be overlooked,” according to Ami Li. But even those who can separate themselves from a particular marginalized group, who have the “luxury” of being straight or cis, find themselves outraged by the scope of this bigotry.

“It’s honestly exhausting to see hateful words paraded about and then have teams willfully ignore domestic violence charges and other issues of makeup in their pursuit of players,” Li said. “As someone who presents as straight, cis, and Asian in a diverse city, it’s very easy for me not to feel targeted, and that’s my privilege. It’s a luxury to be overlooked, you know? But I guess it’s not beyond the pale to feel awful about the words and actions being either tacitly or overtly justified by the league even when I specifically am not part of that population.”

For this generation of fans, it has perhaps never felt more apparent that Major League Baseball, as one POC fan said, “is not inclusive, it does not reach to have strong cultural awareness, and it frankly has spent its entire existence speaking to the thoughts, feelings, and reactions to white life.” Like many of us, these fans have often used baseball as an escape from the “real world” but now find themselves being forced to find that escape elsewhere, in more inclusive environments.

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Many of the complaints from marginalized fans begin with MLB’s seeming dismissiveness of acts of bigotry from its players, organizations, and fans.

“The old guard seem to act like they want their cake and eat it, too. They want pride nights and an outreach program for black youth in baseball, but they also abhor the idea of pissing off any single white male fan even a little bit,” Kristin, an LGBTQIA fan, said.

MLB’s perceived hierarchy of concerns has frustrated many. Following Braves’ announcers Joe Simpson and Chip Caray calling the Dodgers unprofessional for wearing t-shirts during batting practice and the Nationals designating Shawn Kelley for assignment for throwing his glove, one queer POC fan asserted that “it’s just very telling where the priorities are for baseball, which is maintaining the old and harmful status quo in ways all around.”

Others directed the bulk of their frustration at what they view as the inadequacy of the players’ apologies. Most frequently, the three dozen fans we spoke to pointed to the fact that each of the players’ initial apologies failed to mention the specific groups harmed by the slurs. What’s more, the players did not demonstrate how it was they came to live more accepting, inclusive lives.

“We keep hearing ‘I regret it’ and ‘my teammates know the man I am’ but not ‘I’m so sorry to the communities that I hurt and offended with my remarks,’” Hannah, an LGBTQIA fan, said. “There hasn’t been any direct acknowledgement of the LGBTQ+/POC communities, and at least to me, that’s what really hurts the most.”

In many of these cases, the burden of white players’ bigotry has fallen disproportionately on their teammates of color, who find themselves asked far more frequently than white players about such matters. Both Lorenzo Cain and Jesus Aguilar, Hader’s teammates and players of color, spoke about his tweets, asserting that Hader has been a good teammate and they want to put the incident behind them. When Hader held a press conference a few days after issuing a tearful apology to his teammates, each of his teammates of color–Cain, Keon Broxton, Eric Thames, and Jeremy Jeffress–stood behind him, implying that the POC community should find his ‘apology’ adequate.

These perspectives obviously are important; one wouldn’t want to center white voices in conversations on racism. But focusing so much of the coverage on players of color creates pressure on them to absolve their offending teammate and can lend the impression that policing and correcting racism is the exclusive province of players of color rather than one that teammates share.

Of the white players in the league, only the Cubs’ Jon Lester and Nationals’ Sean Doolittle have publicly condemned the bigotry shown in players like Hader’s tweets. Both took to Twitter to do so, with Lester first urging players to scrub their accounts of bigoted tweets and then spending several hours discussing the issue with fans who wanted a stronger response from him. Meanwhile, Doolittle tweeted that “there’s no place for racism, insensitive language or even casual homophobia” in professional baseball.

These small actions on behalf of Lester and Doolittle did not go unnoticed.

Erin, an LGBTQIA fan who took Miller Park off her bucket list due to the standing ovation Hader received there, said that seeing Lester and Doolittle’s tweets, said that seeing their tweets “made me feel like at least someone cares.” Yet the actions of Lester and Doolittle also highlighted the dearth of similar responses from other players.

This failure to more thoroughly address and publicly atone for bigotry extends beyond the players and the league. Each of the players whose tweets have surfaced has spoken of growth and change, but that sort of change and understanding of harm done rarely happens absent accountability. But aside from Martinez, Bean, Lester, and Doolittle, this role remains largely unfilled, at least in public.

The lack of accountability extends to reporters, who have failed to ask the right questions of these players and their white teammates. As one closeted fan pointed out, who uses baseball as an escape, “I wish reporters asked what changed these players’ mindset after they said these things, or if they changed at all.” And of course, it also extends to fans, from those who gave Hader a standing ovation to the ones defending these players on social media.

Fans never can know exactly what occurs behind closed clubhouse doors, which is why these public failings are so painful and so worrisome. What else do we have to go on?

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If anything is clear from all of this, it’s that to this point, MLB still has work to do in handling this issue. So what could it do differently in the future that would be more effective and impactful?

Many fans suggested players could reach out to organizations representing the marginalized communities they’ve offended and donate to them, providing sincere apologies “to each and every community they embarrassed.”

Others want Major League Baseball and teams to go further, fining or suspending the players. As these tweets all occurred prior to the players being drafted and becoming employees of Major League Baseball, assigning them more stringent punishment is not so straightforward. Yet, as Fangraphs’ Sheryl Ring discussed in an excellent piece on the matter, “while there was a cap on fines for off-field behavior, unpaid suspensions for off-field speech, even speech unrelated to baseball, were not in violation of the CBA…there is ample precedent to support a suspension” for these players.

As with any issue of bigotry, there is no quick fix, and any type of punishment also has potential drawbacks. Speaking both specifically about punishments and more generally about forms of animosity toward marginalized people, one LGBTQIA fan, determined to not let bigotry “win” by driving them from the game, raised an aspect of the issue that often has been overlooked in discussions.

“I feel like vilifying the players who made the tweets is just putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound,” the LGBTQIA fan said. “It doesn’t get at the root of the problem, and it almost gives a pass to the players who harbor the same bigoted beliefs but are smart enough to delete their tweets or not tweet in the first place,” referencing Lester’s tweet.

Other solutions that move the obligation from the individual to Major League Baseball are preferable in the eyes of some marginalized fans. Several fans to whom we spoke brought up the idea of mandatory Pride Nights, Black heritage nights, and other events specifically designed to recognize and celebrate the contributions of diverse players, fans, and communities to baseball, and to tell the histories of those communities’ inclusion (or exclusion) in the game, even when that history is painful or unflattering. Though many teams have these events, they are often contained to a small section of the ballpark. Instead, inclusivity should be the overwhelming theme of these nights and of every baseball season.

There is also the opportunity for MLB to become proactive in combating bigotry. Rather than assign sensitivity training to players whose bigotry has been made public, MLB should institute more expansive annual sensitivity and diversity training for every player and executive. In doing so, not only would every player receive the same message, but the training would be viewed less as a punishment–something that impedes the player’s job–and more as an opportunity to improve the working environment and foster greater levels of cooperation between players of different backgrounds.

Moreso than their peers, marginalized fans understand the connection between baseball and political life. For too long, this connection has been used in service of bigotry rather than as a tool of dismantling it. It’s time to change that.

“Baseball is a huge part of American culture,” another LGBTQIA fan said. “If [MLB] makes the LGBT community part of the game, it’ll become part of the culture.”

Above all, marginalized fans just want Major League Baseball to prioritize creating an inclusive environment. The punishments and apologies do not need to be perfectly executed from the outset so long as Major League Baseball and its players show sincere and sustained care for their marginalized fans, employees, and teammates. This care for diversity must extend to actively seeking out diverse employees in all areas of Major League Baseball, a goal Rob Manfred has stressed since his becoming commissioner, but one that’s promise remains unfulfilled. Only when marginalized groups are placed in positions of influence will it be possible to truly stamp out the various -isms we have seen young players so casually bandy about.

Beyond the obvious moral failings, the issue carries with it real stakes for the league’s future. There is no telling how many players or potential executives have foregone MLB careers because of the environment that can permeate the game’s dugouts and dusty back fields. There is no telling how many players and fans have remained closeted because they’ve understood they will not be accepted for who they are. There is no telling how many members of marginalized communities will shy away from baseball in the future.

It takes a community willing to be relentless-and relentlessly patient-to undo the damage done and strike out toward something new. Luckily, Major League Baseball—despite a tarnished history and deep and persistent disappointments—has one of those communities. The people who reached out to us to provide their input for this piece, the fans who routinely assert that bigotry is unacceptable, and those like Doolittle who hold their teammates and co-workers accountable, together they strive to make baseball a place of acceptance and diversity. There is no one way forward for baseball, but a path has begun to appear thanks to this community, as BP’s Rachael McDaniel told us.

“As much as baseball’s problems are systemic, and as much as we have to continue to publicly critique things like the Osuna and Chapman trades when they happen, I see a lot of hope in the way the discussion has evolved over the past few years, and in the way it will continue to evolve,” McDaniel said. “Change will never come unprompted from the top. Change will come from us, and I believe in us. I believe in this community.”

It’s time for Major League Baseball to listen to these voices and to rise up to meet its fans in their commitment to inclusivity. It’s a mantle baseball has willingly assumed before; it would be a shame to see them turn their backs on it again.