David Ortiz has a few choice words for protesters who unfurled an anti-racism banner at Fenway Park recently.
“Hell, no!” the retired Red Sox designated hitter tells TMZ Friday, Sept. 15. “You don’t do that at all!”
At the Wednesday ballgame between the Boston Red Sox and Oakland Athletics, four fans displayed a banner reading, “Racism is as American as Baseball.” They were ejected but not arrested, according to The New York Times.
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“We are a group of white anti-racist protesters,” one of the protesters in the group, inspired by Black Lives Matter, anonymously told various news outlets. “We want to remind everyone that just as baseball is fundamental to American culture and history, so, too, is racism.”
Despite their allyship, Ortiz thinks there’s no room for political statements at the ballpark.
“I don’t think people at games should do any of that crap,” he says. “It is what it is and you gotta do the right thing to survive and make people happy and bring happiness.”
He added demonstrations like that can cause people to “get the wrong idea.”
“You don’t want to add more s— to the s— that’s already out there,” he says. “I won’t do it myself, personally.”