Japanese Fans Heckled at Royals/Red Sox Game

Kenny, I appreciate your (very justified) anger. But I live in the midwest and I am not a typical redneck, ignorant mid-westerner. That comment (while I'm sure born from anger) - in some ways - is not much different from those people who were on the Japanese fans.

Sadly you are correct about the amount of racism in the US, but it's not limited to the US. Black players from Africa and the United States playing football (soccer) in Europe have an incredibly hard time in places like Italy and Spain and some of the smaller leagues around the continent. The fans there routinely make monkey noises when the players touch the ball if they are on the opposing team.

I am sorry about your experiences growing up. I can assure you my wife and I are not raising our children that way - even in the midwest.

This applies to almost any time someone is a fan of the other team. If Matsuzaka played for the Royals, there wouldn't be any heckling from Royals fans - in fact, you'd probably see a Boston fan (and there were quite a few there) doing the exact same thing.

I was sitting in right field, and a few (white) people were yelling all sorts of insulting things to J.D. Drew. That certainly wasn't racist. Some fans in the U.S. simply try to get under the opposing players' skin no matter what color it is.

And you can't stereotype an entire region based on one fan. That's like the people who see one Asian make a poor turn on the road and then say "All Asians can't drive."

Oops, I deviated off-topic. The original post was about heckling the fans, not players. In my experiences at Kauffman Stadium, if a fan says something in sheer bad taste or to other fans, other fans will usually put them in their place. This person was definitely the exception to the rule (though I didn't hear him).

Brimsek, you're right - it was wrong of me to generalize with my mid-westerners comment. I know that not all mid-westerners are racist, as I have a lot of good friends from the mid-west who treat everyone with respect whether they're white, black, Asian, etc. I apologize if I offended you.

I just couldn't get over that comment from that Royals fan who was proud of the fact that he insulted the Japanese fans who were at the game and bragged about it. His comment has been taken down thankfully. I just hope that the Japanese fans who witnessed such a great performance from Matsuzaka didn't go home with a bad taste in their mouth because of that one jerk. Part of this guy's verbal abuse towards the Japanese fans might have stemmed from the fact that Matsuzaka was having his way with the Royals lineup.

20X6!!, I have also witnessed fans getting on other fans at Kauffman Stadium. It was too bad that no one told this one guy to shut up and let the Japanese fans watch the game in peace. When I was a kid, the Royals had a heavyset pitcher named Mike Jones and when he came into pitch one time, a fan kept saying, "Fat a** Mike Jones is coming into the game." He must've said that 2 or 3 times when all of the sudden another fan chimed in with, "So what are you? Slim and trim?" The first fan shot back with, "No, but I'm not a lard a** like Mike Jones!" The fans sitting near him all rolled their eyes at him.

No apology needed Kenny. You had every right to be angry.

I understand your frustration - incidents like that are disheartening at best. I agree with you about how those fans might feel after going home. Also glad to see his comments were taken down. At least someone had the good sense to see them for what they were - pathetic.