The San Diego Padres have fired the contractor who was at the center of the National Anthem blunder Saturday at Petco Park when The San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus were supposed to sing. They also said that they had taken disciplinary action against the employee who was responsible for the incident.
The Sunday night statement from the Padres read,
“After a thorough examination of the events that occurred during last night’s National Anthem we have concluded our internal investigation and have found no evidence of malicious intent on the part of any individuals involved.
Based both on the unintentional mistake that was made, as well as the failure to immediately intervene and correct the situation by those who had oversight, we have terminated our relationship with the third-party contractor who was responsible for the error, and taken disciplinary action against our employee who was responsible for the game production on Saturday.
We once again sincerely apologize to members of the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus, their families and those who came out to support their pride night performance. The Padres organization is proud of our longstanding commitment to inclusion – within both our sport and our community.
We deeply regret that a mistake on our part has called this into question, but accept full responsibility.”
Sunday night Billy Bean, the former out Padres player who is now the MLB’s ambassador of inclusion released a statement that read:
“This past Saturday night, it was very unfortunate that there was a technical error during the National Anthem at Petco Park. However, I want to convey that my former team, the San Diego Padres, has supported our inclusion message at MLB without hesitation, even before my return to baseball in 2014. They have led by example by inviting me, numerous times, to speak with their players and employees. I have also worked very closely with their owner, Ron Fowler, and team CEO Mike Dee, and I can assure you that they have made every effort to include the LGBT community and champion equality in MLB for each and every one of us. I’m so proud of the Padres organization for hosting an LGBT Pride event during the season, and I would hope that our community recognizes that error and intent are not related.”
