Rickie Weeks: Racial slurs from fans happen ‘a lot more than people think’
In wake of Adam Jones’s experience at Fenway Park, Rays first baseman Rickie Weeks weighed in on racism in baseball and gave his perspective.
Jones heard racial slurs and had peanuts thrown in his direction on Monday in Boston, sparking a conversation about fan behavior. Weeks, a 14-year veteran, shared his experiences. “It happens to you a lot more than people think," Weeks said, according to the Tampa Bay Times. “It happens. I'm not going to say it happened one, two, three, four, five times. It happens. …
“It's tough. It's tough. It's a touchy subject, as you can tell as I'm talking to you about it. It's one of those things where you just don't want to see it in baseball. You don't want to see it anywhere.”
Weeks’s comments support the sentiment shared by Yankees pitcher CC Sabathia this week. Both emphasized that what happened to Jones is nothing new, although Sabathia singled out Boston as the city where black players have grown to expect racial slurs at the ballpark.
“It gets to the point where somebody says something like that gets personal, and you'd like to say something back to them or do something about it,” Weeks said. “It takes a lot of restraint from guys like us being in that situation.”
