Despite 'Dinger' explanation, Marlins outfielder Lewis Brinson can't unhear slur: 'I keep hearing the n-word'

As a Miami Marlins outfielder and public figure, Lewis Brinson is accustomed to catching grief. As a Black baseball player, he says that comes in the form of at least one monthly direct message or comment on Instagram using a racial slur to defile him.

So, when he heard that a Colorado Rockies fan might have shouted the name of the team mascot, Dinger, rather than a slur directed at Brinson while he was in the batter’s box, he hopes that fan is not inappropriately castigated.

Yet 24 hours after the ninth inning of Sunday’s game at Coors Field, and after watching video of the sequence in question at least 50 times, Brinson’s ears – and his mind – cannot shake what he believes he heard.

“I personally keep hearing the n-word. It’s not that I want to hear it,” Brinson said Monday on a video call from San Diego before the Marlins’ game with the Giants. “I never want to hear that word. Personally, I’ve never been called that, in person, to my face, on the baseball field, or outside the baseball field, ever, so I don’t know what my reaction would be if I got called that. I haven’t talked to the Rockies, I haven’t talked to that fan personally - but if that’s the case, I’m sorry for any backlash or anything that he’s getting right now. I know we’re getting a lot of love and support on Instagram and I’m sure on Twitter and I appreciate that.

“But again, I’m a human. I have sympathy. If he was yelling for the mascot, I am sorry for the backlash and unnecessary attention he’s getting right now.”

OPINION: What word did you hear? Rockies racial slur audio another sign of divided nation

As far as the Rockies and Major League Baseball are concerned, there is no if.

The club talked to what it believes was the fan in question and other fans, and said in a statement that after a “thorough investigation that included calls, emails and video clips from concerned fans, media and broadcast partners, the Colorado Rockies have concluded that the fan was indeed yelling for Rockies mascot Dinger in hopes of getting his attention for a photo, and there was never any racial slur that occurred.”

If Brinson sounds willing to accept that yet also leave the door open for another outcome, it’s a well-earned perspective.

Brinson, 27, is a part-time player who has spent parts of the past four seasons with the Marlins and acknowledges his burden of fame as a Black player is less than some of his better-known colleagues.

Yet, he says he still receives crude, hateful, racist messages with that word once or twice a month, typically arriving in the same grim package – a profile picture that’s not a person at all, or so you’d think.

“They don’t show their face and don’t tag themselves on their posts or the DM they send me,” he says, “but I do get it, once a month, twice a month. I know other Black players get it more. We do get called the n-word on social media. It’s disgusting. We see it and try to block it out, but it’s a disgusting, degrading word that brings nothing but hate and cowardliness.

“There’s no place for it. It does happen and I don’t want to just throw that under the rug. I want everybody to know that it does happen to Black players, quite often, way too often.”

Brinson spent part of Monday talking with former teammates Curtis Granderson and Cameron Maybin; Granderson is president of the Players’ Alliance, a coalition of mostly Black current and former major leaguers who formed last year in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. Brinson says he does not yet know if the Alliance and Black ballplayers will accept the Rockies’ conclusion.

They are unanimous, though, in the plausibility of the incident, even if it possibly did not unfold as originally believed. And that, perhaps, is what stings the most.

“All I know is that, in my opinion, it sounds a lot like the n-word. But I’m not that fan. I don’t know what he said,” says Brinson. “I only have the video and the video sounds like the n-word to me. But, if he didn’t, and didn’t initially mean for him to make it sound like that. I’m sorry for all the backlash coming.

“If it didn’t happen yesterday or it happened yesterday, it does happen. And a lot of Black players can attest to that. It’s forgotten about way too much and needs to be stopped. Anybody caught saying anything racial to anybody – white, Latino, anybody – needs to be banned from every sporting event.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Marlins' Lewis Brinson comments on fan yelling at Dinger the mascot