Cleveland Indians Yu Chang subjected to racist messages after error
After making a costly ninth-inning error on Monday against the Chicago White Sox, Cleveland Indians first baseman Yu Chang became the subject of various anti-Asian social media messages.
Chang shared the messages on Tuesday with the caption, “Exercise your freedom of speech in a right way, I accept all comments, positive or negative but DEFINITELY NOT RACIST ONES. Thank you all and love you all. #StopAsianHate”
Some of the messages included referrals to the shape of Chang’s eyes as well as the coronavirus.
Cleveland manager Terry Francona called the messages, “stupid and ignorant” adding, “Errors are part of the game. But ignorance and racism, they shouldn’t be anywhere.”
Francona also checked in with Chang prior to their Tuesday night game in Chicago.
“I wanted to make sure he was OK and that he understands the lunacy or the idiocy that was said is not shared by hopefully many people, certainly not in the Indians organization,” Francona said.
He added that Chang seemed to be handling the situation well.
“He’s an extremely mature young man and he’s fine,” Francona said.
Since revealing the racist messages, Chang has received an abundance of support from many in the baseball community including many Indians fans.
“Thank you. NOW LET’S PLAY BALL!” Chang wrote a few hours after his first tweet.
Chang was not in the lineup for Tuesday’s matchup but Francona said that Chang’s absence from the lineup had nothing to do with the error from Monday.
“I can promise you we will never make a lineup out from somebody’s tweet the night before,” Francona said.
The incident involving Chang is just another example of the disturbing rise in anti-Asian activities happening across the United States including the fatal shooting of six Asian women in Atlanta last month.
