The Boston Red Sox selected Brett Netzer out of UNC Charlotte in the third round of the 2017 MLB draft. He is no longer a member of the organization after he went on an angry tweeting spree. These tweets were racist, homophobic, and anti-Semitic towards Chaim Bloom, the chairman of the Red Sox who is Jewish.
The tweet that sparked the firestorm came from Netzer on Saturday in which he suggested the Black community should leave America to "re-establish" their culture somewhere else. When accused of being racist, Netzer said he was, in fact, racist.
i am a racist. i do sometimes make assumptions based on a persons race/ethnicity/culture. glad that is out of the way https://t.co/lbJUoLzQsE
— Brett Netzer (@BrettNetzer) February 26, 2022
Shortly thereafter, the Red Sox announced they had released Netzer. The watchdog group StopAntisemitism tweeted out the Red Sox minor leaguer went on an insane social media bender.”
Brett Netzer from the Boston Red Sox needed some attention so he decided to step up his “let’s piss everyone off” game and go on an insane antisemitic, transphobic, anti-Black social media bender.
— StopAntisemitism.org (@StopAntisemites) February 26, 2022
Red Sox had enough and just released Netzer. pic.twitter.com/yUUtuEDblx
It appears Netzer's central issue with Bloom's Jewish faith is that he should believe LGBTQ individuals are guilty of sodomy as dictated by the Torah. Pretty tough to check all those boxes in one fell swoop, but Netzer managed here. It is hard to see him returning to the game of baseball after his comments today.