Before Friday's White Sox-Orioles game in Baltimore, a "new pregame message was read and displayed on the video board that 'threatening language or any type of hate speech will not be tolerated and will result in ejection for the ballpark.'" After this week's events involving the Orioles and Red Sox, MLB is "reaching out to all 30 clubs to review their policies and procedures when handling abusive language and hate speech." This is the "first step of canvasing the baseball landscape to re-evaluate how individual clubs handle such language in the stands and directed towards players." (Baltimore SUN, 5/6). MLB Commissioner Rob Manfred on Friday said the survey of clubs was a "prelude to giving consideration to some more industry-wide guidelines in this area'" (WASHINGTONPOST.com, 5/5).
During the "Weekend Update" segment of NBC's "SNL," cast member Michael Che said, "Major League Baseball condemned the ‘unacceptable racial slurs’ yelled at Orioles OF Adam Jones during a game in Boston, because the only place for racism in baseball is on the hats" (“SNL,” NBC, 5/6).
