Last Saturday, the San Diego Gay Men’s Chorus was sent out to sing the national anthem before a San Diego Padres game but were instead drowned out by an audio recording of a woman singing over their live performance.
The performance was conducted as part of the Padres’ “Pride Night,” and the chorus posted part of the following statement on its Facebook page in regards to the incident, as it led to some disrespectful behavior from fans at Petco Park:
“No attempt to correct the situation occurred other than to force the 100 men to stand in the spotlight of center field for the song’s duration and then be escorted off the field to the heckles of baseball fans shouting homophobic taunts including, ‘You sing like a girl.’ “
Now, MLB appears to have concluded its investigation into the matter, citing that human error as the cause of the incident.
Apparently, the Padres’ lead entertainment supervisor had been in a car accident the day before and was unable to attend the game, which left the duties in the hands of those who were not as familiar with carrying out the roles. MLB cited the following in their findings:
“The employees involved had not malicious intentions and, in fact, universally relayed contrition for how the incident unfolded and the adverse impression that it created.”
The rest of the league’s statement from their investigation can be found below:
MLB announces it has completed investigation into Padres anthem incident: pic.twitter.com/mvb8rCRl0Z
— Dennis Lin (@sdutdennislin) May 26, 2016
Apparently, this kind of error, which could have easily been discerned within the Padres’ organization itself, took a league investigation to come up with “human error.” All this could have taken was a statement from the Padres explaining their mistakes. After all, the Gay Men’s Chorus has performed at Petco Park before It would have been much better to approach them directly, especially given the disrespect they received from some fans and the embarrassment they went through because of the audio.