#Delino DeShields Jr. says Yankees fans called him N-word

Cleveland Indians outfielder Delino DeShields Jr. alleged that two fans at Yankee Stadium directed a racial slur toward him during his rookie season. DeShields was in left field with the Texas Rangers in 2015 when some harmless taunts transitioned into the fans calling the second-generation big leaguer the N-word, he said.

“I turned around and I told them to f–k off. I’ll beat your ass,” DeShields told ESPN. “I was mad as f–k at that point. That’s f—ed up. In that sense, you feel very alone. Even if you do say something, how many people are going to do something about it? That’s just a situation where you feel alone.”

Two seasons later, DeShields was asked by A’s catcher Bruce Maxwell to join him in taking a knee in protest of racial injustice.

DeShields, who’d heard Donald Trump call kneeling NFL players “sons of bitches” at the time, was dissuaded by his parents, his agent and Rangers general manager Jon Daniels from joining the Colin Kaepernick-led movement, leaving Maxwell as the only MLB player to make the statement.

As Maxwell kneeled and was booed in Texas, DeShields stood alongside his teammates.

“I felt like a sellout,” DeShields said. “I always felt like I should’ve been out there with him, and now he’s not even in the league no more. He’s out in Mexico playing. It just sucks that happened to him.”

Maxwell hasn’t played in the majors since 2018. Kaepernick hasn’t been on an NFL team since 2016.

“I didn’t want to be castrated out the league for something that I believe in while trying to inspire the youth,” the 27-year-old DeShields said. “I just didn’t want to contribute to that, especially when I’m trying to inspire young African American kids that you can play in the big leagues and look like me if that’s something you want to do.

“It takes a really strong person to say pretty much, ‘F— what y’all think. This is how I feel as a minority in this sport,’ and be confident in that. I wish I was strong enough at the time to stand with him and show support. I wasn’t there yet.

From 1971 to 1997, at least 15 percent of MLB players were black. In 2019, only 7.7 percent of MLB players were black.

“It’s easier in the NFL or the NBA to stand up for these things because growing up, even if you’re white, when you’re around football and basketball, you’re constantly around African Americans,” DeShields said. “You grow to empathize with them and love them for who they are. I’m not saying that doesn’t happen in baseball, but there’s a lot of baseball players who haven’t played with black players until they got to a professional level. From that standpoint, it makes it harder to have those conversations.”

“I was always taught to not make the white man mad,” DeShields said. “That was how I was raised with whatever I was doing, just respect white people cause white people have the power in America. If I felt like I was disrespecting somebody who was giving me an opportunity to play, who was writing my checks and I disrespected them, well all right, if you disrespect me and how I feel, then I don’t want you on my team. That’s scary to think of, that people have so much control over your life and way of living.”