Boston Red Sox Cut a Player After His Racist, Homophobic Tweets Surfaced Online

A minor league player for the Boston Red Sox was released by the team after the discovery of a series of racist and homophobic tweets.

Chad Jennings of The Athletic broke the news via Twitter that Brett Netzer was released by the Red Sox for his postings. Netzer quote tweeted the post from Jennings, appearing to confirm his racism and homophobia.

"I'm told the Red Sox have officially released former third-round pick Brett Netzer following a series of racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic posts on Twitter," Jennings tweeted Saturday.

"I'll go along with racist and homophobic, but anti-semitic?" Netzer wrote in his quote tweet of the post. "That's too far."

Netzer, 25, was the 101st pick in the 2017 draft by the Red Sox. A native of Tega Cay, South Carolina, he had a career minor league batting average of .263 with 10 home runs and 127 runs batted in. His social media accounts had been relatively quiet until his recent outburst of hate, and he appeared to have sought release from his contract.

The former player embraced his beliefs in the tweets, openly admitting to racism.

He also targeted Red Sox executive Chaim Bloom for his work with the Black Lives Matter movement and the LGBTQ+ community, saying Bloom "sold his soul to the Sodom and race groups."

And in another tweet, he likened trans folks to "rapists" and "sexual molesters."

In a video posted earlier this morning to Instagram, Netzer said a lot of folks have reached out to ask if he's okay, but none had disputed his beliefs and opinions.

"I haven't had anyone contend with what I said," Netzer said in the video. "I haven't had anyone make any points to say why what I said is not true. And I think that's somewhat troubling."

Regarding his claim that he is racist and homophobic, but not anti-Semitic, one commenter had the perfect response.

"You really didn't have to score the hat trick to be utterly reprehensible," said the commenter. "2 out of 3 still gets you there."

Out reached out to Netzer for comment, but he had not responded by the time this article was published.

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