Be smart, PawSox
WBJ Editor Brad Kane
For a business looking to cultivate a large fanbase in Worcester, the headline was extremely bad. “Pawtucket Red Sox ‘celebrate’ Pride Night by insulting LGBT fans with Sean Spicer and free Chick-fil-A,” wrote LGBT magazine Boston Spirit.
On July 18, the Pawtucket Red Sox held their Pride Night, while at the same time hosting dignitaries from the Independence Fund, a nonprofit helping wounded veterans. To represent the veterans fund, Sean Spicer, Rhode Island resident and former press secretary for President Donald Trump, threw out the first pitch.
LGBT fans in the stands were understandably appalled by having the former mouthpiece of a hateful presidential administration playing such a prominent role. Coupled with the PawSox long-running promotion giving fans a chance to win a free sandwich from Chick-fil-A – whose strong religious beliefs often run afoul of the queer community – fans were outraged in Worcester and Rhode Island. Boston Spirit ran its article on July 22, and the PawSox were slow to react. Two days after the Spirit article ran, a prominent member of the Worcester LGBT community told me he was convinced the inclusion of Spicer was intentional.
Of course, it wasn’t. Less than an hour after I mentioned the Spicer issue to a PawSox representative, PawSox President Charles Steinberg called me to say everything had been an unfortunate, inadvertent mistake. The team didn’t know Spicer was going to be included in the Independence Fund ceremony until a week before, and PawSox officials didn’t put two-and-two together about Pride Night. Steinberg said the team was working on engaging with the Worcester and Rhode Island LGBT community and issuing an apology. That apology eventually arrived the following Friday, a week after the game.
With the announcement of the team coming to Worcester, the PawSox have an incredible amount of goodwill built in the Central Mass. community. The team should not take this for granted, especially since the city is borrowing $101 million to build the baseball stadium. That’s a lot of money for a city with many responsibilities – schools, police, fire, keeping the tax rate in check – so it behooves the PawSox not to give potential fans reasons for distrust before they even arrive in Worcester.
The PawSox are working to make things right, but the team can only make so many mistakes before it becomes a major problem.
- Brad Kane, editor
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