DISRESPECTFUL COMMENT

Yankee Suspended 1 Game for Racially Charged ‘Jackie’ ‘Joke’

Josh Donaldson is appealing the league’s decision.

Major League Baseball announced on Monday that it was suspending Yankees third baseman Josh Donaldson for one game and levying “an disclosed fine for his inappropriate comments” during a game on Saturday in which he called star White Sox shortstop Tim Anderson, who is Black, “Jackie” in a racially charged reference to Jackie Robinson. While Donaldson said the remark was a friendly joke aimed at a former teammate, Anderson called it “a disrespectful comment” and the league deemed it “a contributing factor in a bench-clearing incident” between the teams. Donaldson, who is appealing his suspension, was added to the COVID IL on Monday, the day after manager Aaron Boone criticized his own player’s remark as “somewhere he should not be going.”