"The Baltimore Orioles COO has had enough of racism at the ballpark and enough of a society that is breeding more and more hate."

Fenway Park sure isn't unique in this regard, although Boston's franchise in the American League has struggled mightily to exorcise a few past ghosts (it was the last to integrate, in 1959).

‘We Must Actively Stand Up’: John Angelos’s Response to Racism at Fenway Park, by Dave Zirin (The Nation)

The Baltimore Orioles COO has had enough of racism at the ballpark and enough of a society that is breeding more and more hate.

On Monday night, a large group of “fans” at Boston’s Fenway Park called Baltimore Orioles All-Star outfielder Adam Jones a n—– from the outfield seats, and one threw a bag of peanuts at him. The incident has provoked widespread uproar. Here is an exclusive comment about the incident from Baltimore Orioles COO John Angelos. People may remember Angelos from his intensely just and political response to the killing of Freddie Gray while Gray was in police custody in 2015. The below needs to be read and reread.

For what it is worth and since you asked, and speaking as one man and for myself here, my thoughts on incidents of this sad and tragic kind, and what they represent today are the following:

It is a tragic reflection of the sickness that today afflicts aspects of our society that we are reminded seemingly every day now of the demented hatreds, prejudices, and biases expressed in certain circles of our community around race, sex, national origin, ethnicity, religious following, sexual orientation, and other coincidences of birth and of living life. The increasing frequency with which these individual incidents spew forth into our public domain and the increasing number of newly formed hate groups that echo these individual episodes and their themes strongly suggests the rise of an increasingly militant and unrestrained sect of our citizenry emboldened in expressing publicly their private contempt for our neighbors, friends, and family members ...

Big cheer for the Orioles: "Baltimore is the only major league franchise to regularly play 'This Land Is Your Land,' which it does at Friday home games."

I've been here before, most recently in 2013.

ON THE AVENUES REWOUND: Talking Seventh Inning Blues (2010)

For a baseball fan, the only patriotic song that really matters is “Take Me Out to the Ballgame,” for decades a staple of the seventh-inning stretch at ballparks large and small, from California to the New York island.

Unfortunately, the purloining of this sacred tradition commenced shortly after 9-11, reaching a predictable nadir during the annual playoffs and World Series, which prompted an exciting, new activity in my heretical household: Scrambling to be first to thumb the mute button, thus sparing us yet another performance of “God Bless America.”

Delightfully, the Orioles "get it" -- not often enough, but we must start somewhere.

Orioles Deliver a Seventh-Inning Message: This Song Is Their Song, by Ben Strauss (New York Times)

BALTIMORE — In the middle of the seventh inning of the Baltimore Orioles’ game against the Arizona Diamondbacks two Friday nights ago, the public-address announcer asked the crowd at Camden Yards to stand and celebrate America’s diversity. Three singers then stood on the first-base dugout and did a rendition of “This Land Is Your Land,” the famous folk song written by Woody Guthrie.

By the time the end of the third verse arrived — “All around me a voice was sounding, this land was made for you and me” — fans had joined in.

In a tradition that dates to the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, “God Bless America” is played in major league ballparks around the country, including in Baltimore, during the seventh-inning stretch of Sunday games. The song can also be heard during assorted holiday games, and the Yankees play the song during the seventh inning of every home game.

But Baltimore is the only major league franchise to regularly play “This Land Is Your Land,” which it does at Friday home games. And the song, long considered an anthem of the left because of its populist themes, is meant to be more than a Camden Yards singalong. It is a subtle, yet intentional, message from the Orioles’ management that at the intersection of sports and patriotism, one size does not have to fit all.