Ballpark fans and bans

Major League Baseball is making examples of unruly fans whose razzing of opposing players crosses the line into cruelty, banning such fans from its ballparks indefinitely.

The latest fan to earn such a penalty is a 22-year-old Chicago White Sox supporter whose derogatory comment about Arizona Diamondbacks second baseman Ketel Marte’s mother made Marte cry. While Marte was batting during the seventh inning of a June 24 game at Chicago’s Rate Field, the fan, sitting within earshot of Marte, reportedly yelled, “I sent your mom a text last night.”

Marte’s mother, Elpidia Valdez, died in a 2017 car accident in Marte’s native Dominican Republic.

After consoling Marte, Diamond­backs manager Torey Lovullo asked White Sox officials to eject the fan. They obliged, though MLB.com reported that the fan—whose name has not been released—was later “very apologetic and remorseful.”

MLB’s actions appear to signal both a zero-tolerance policy against fan conduct that exceeds garden-­variety heckling—however boorish—and a policy of showing compassion to, and protecting, players who have experienced tragedies or other mental and emotional hardships.

The White Sox fan isn’t the only one who won’t be watching his favorite team in person anytime soon: In April, a Cleveland Guardians supporter earned himself a lifetime ban from his team’s home ballpark after taunting Boston Red Sox outfielder Jarren Duran about the player’s struggles with depression and suicidal thoughts, which Duran revealed last year in a Netflix documentary.

Marte’s story had a happy ending: Attendees at Arizona’s Chase Field repeatedly cheered the All-Star infielder at his first home game following the incident in Chicago. During his first at-bat, USA Today columnist Bob Nightengale reported, Marte nearly shed tears of a different sort—happy ones.

Lia Thomas Associated Press / Photo by John Bazemore

Resetting records

The University of Pennsylvania is effectively erasing the name of Lia Thomas (formally known as Will Thomas) from its women’s swimming record book.

Facing the loss of at least $175 million in federal funding, the Ivy League institution agreed in early July to settle a Title IX lawsuit from the Trump administration. The settlement obligates Penn to strip Thomas—the biological male who became the NCAA women’s 500-yard freestyle champion in 2022—of any titles he won and school records he set while competing for the Quakers and instead award them to female swimmers.

The university must also apologize to the women it harmed at the expense of accommodating Thomas and maintain sex-segregated athletic teams and dressing spaces moving forward. Former Penn swimmer Paula Scanlan told the website OutKick she believes the decision shows the school “knows that they were in the wrong.”

Days after the settlement announcement, the Supreme Court declared it would hear two cases challenging Idaho and West Virginia state laws that bar males from women’s sports. —R.H.