Video showing Boston Red Sox fans’ ovation for Jarren Duran after suspension was altered

How did Boston Red Sox fans react Aug. 14 when outfielder Jarren Duran returned to the lineup after a two-game suspension for using a homophobic slur?

A video that’s gone viral on social media claims Duran, who has publicly apologized for using the slur that was caught on a hot mic, received a standing ovation from the Fenway Park faithful.

"Jarren Duran returns to the lineup after a 2 game suspension to a MASSIVE ovation from Fenway Park," said sticker text on an Aug. 14 TikTok video that had more than 8,300 likes.

TikTok identified this video as part of its efforts to counter inauthentic, misleading or false content. (Read more about PolitiFact’s partnership with TikTok.)

Duran could be heard on a live microphone yelling the slur at Boston’s Aug. 11 game to a heckling fan who told him he needed a tennis racket to hit, after he struck out in his first two at-bats. Duran overall is having a good season at the plate and was the MVP of July’s Major League Baseball All-Star game.

Duran apologized to fans after the game and the team suspended him the next day, with his salary for those days being donated to the Federation of Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays.

We found the same video being shared by others on TikTok, X and YouTube. One X post with more than 3 million views was tagged with a community note, pointing out an obvious flaw in the video, which was altered. We found some others.

(TikTok screenshot)

The first strange thing about the video is that it opens with a fan in a Detroit Tigers cap supposedly cheering for Duran. The Tigers were playing the Seattle Mariners in Detroit the night of Duran’s return, while the Red Sox were hosting the Texas Rangers — not that a fan couldn’t wear his or her team’s gear to an unrelated game. 

As the X community note points out, the video opened with a clip of Tigers and Red Sox fans giving a standing ovation to Tigers star Miguel Cabrera, who was playing his final game at Fenway Park on Aug. 13, 2023.

The man in the Tigers cap seen applauding in the TikTok video is seen 21 seconds into this video clip shared by the Tigers on Facebook.

Another flaw in the video is the broadcaster saying amid camera shots of fans standing and cheering, "I’d say maybe half the fans right now are giving Adam a standing ovation."

Who is Adam, you ask? Well, it’s not Duran, whose first name, as we’ve established, is Jarren. We searched "Adam standing ovation Fenway" on Google and found that Adam is former Baltimore Orioles outfielder Adam Jones.

Featured Fact-check

Sam Brownback

stated on September 5, 2007 in a debate in Durham, N.H.

In countries that allow gay marriage, the rates of heterosexual marriage "have plummeted to where you have counties now in northern Europe where 80 percent of the first-born children are born out of wedlock."

Jones said he was the subject of racial taunts during a game at Fenway Park. The next day, May 2, 2017, Jones received a standing ovation from Boston fans when he came to bat for the first time.

You can see several of the same fans in the TikTok video in the 2017 video below, including a woman in a red shirt and blue jacket, and a man in a Red Sox jersey standing next to a little boy in a Boston cap.

We watched the Red Sox-Rangers game on MLB.com to see how fans reacted to Duran’s return. Some applause could be heard, but there was no prolonged ovation shown or acknowledged by the broadcast. 

Boston Herald Red Sox beat reporter Mac Cerullo posted on X that Duran received a "louder than usual cheer" when introduced in pregame warmups and another hand when he came to the plate for the first time.

The Boston Globe Red Sox reporter Pete Abraham wrote of Duran’s return that the outfielder "did not receive an ovation," but "just the usual cheering you'd expect for a star player."

We also noticed another flaw in the TikTok video, which shows Duran wearing a long red sleeve under his jersey on his right arm. Duran, in his return, was wearing a white sleeve on his right arm, which you can see in the photo atop this story. 

A video that claimed to show Duran getting a "massive" ovation upon his return from a suspension spliced together videos of crowds from two past events. The claim is Pants on Fire!