Orioles outfielder Adam Jones took to Twitter after yesterday's 10-2 win in San Francisco to complain about a fan tossing a banana onto the field. The Giants say they have no record of the incident.
Jones hit a three-run homer in the top of the ninth, capping off a blowout win and series victory over the last-place Giants. It was when he took the field in the bottom of the ninth that Jones says the banana-thrower struck.
A banana thrown at a black player is a racially motivated gesture, one that has a long and ignominious history in European soccer and, in recent years, has even popped up in Canadian hockey arenas. But American sports have largely remained banana-free, and the Giants are taking the report seriously. Neither the Giants' media relations director nor their VP of ballpark operations had received any reports of a banana thrown on the field, though they will review surveillance footage of the ninth inning.
Jones got frustrated by the feedback to his tweet ("How do you know it was racist? Maybe the person just wanted to throw something and a banana was all they had?" was a dispiritingly common response), and threatened to leave social media.