The Boston Red Sox shared their strategy Monday for enforcing the lifetime ban issued to a fan who used a racial slur in conversation with another fan at Fenway Park last week - one night after Adam Jones was victimized by racist taunts at the ballpark - though a team spokeswoman admitted there are potential holes that could allow the fan to sneak into the stadium at some point.
"We informed this person verbally and in writing, and we've also flagged their credit card from being able to purchase tickets from the organization moving forward," Red Sox spokeswoman Zineb Curran told WEEI's Alex Reimer.
"Key security personnel are aware of who the individual is. What we're not doing is posting this person's picture and name at every gate. That's not something we're doing. We know this isn't a perfect or infallible system. And we recognize that enforcing it will be a difficult thing to do. But if the person is willing to take a risk and come back to the ballpark, there are actions that can be taken if they're caught."
Any fan "engaging in intolerant behavior" at Fenway Park is liable to land a lifetime ban, said team president Sam Kennedy, who enacted the policy Wednesday, two days after the Jones incident. The first person to be banned from the stadium under the new edict was a middle-aged white man who used a racial slur Tuesday night to describe the rendition of the national anthem sung by a Kenyan woman, leaning over and saying it to freelance writer Calvin Hennick, who then reported the fan to security.
"I was totally happy to do that because if he was going to deny it, I wanted him to deny it to my face like the coward he was," Hennick told Kay Lazar of the Boston Globe last week.
He continued: "This makes you wonder how many people are thinking (racist thoughts) and not saying it. People are feeling very comfortable with bigotry that we haven't seen in a long time."