Social distancing has made for some creative hand gestures when it comes to celebrations. However, the creativity of a certain coach for the Oakland A’s went awry.
A’s bench coach Ryan Christenson was seen greeting players with extended arm and straightened hand, as they came off the field doing elbow bumps with coaches on Thursday.
Full video of @Athletics bench coach Ryan Christenson apparently giving two Nazi salutes #Athletics pic.twitter.com/xK8R4SWnHh
— @laaabaseball (@laaabaseball) August 7, 2020
As ESPN reports:
Closer Liam Hendriks could be seen correcting Christenson’s gesture so it fit what the rest of the team was doing. Christenson then turned around and repeated the gesture.
‘No, no straight arm, you have to bend your elbow,’ Christenson said Hendriks told him, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. ‘Oh, I see what you mean, oh no, it’s like ‘Heil Hitler.”
Teams have moved away from traditional high-fives to follow social distancing rules set forth by Major League Baseball. In a statement Thursday, Christenson said he was attempting to adapt the elbow bump gesture that the team does instead of high-fives and it ‘unintentionally resulted in a racist and horrible salute that I do not believe in.’
The A’s apologized for the incident, calling it something they do not support and “are deeply sorry that this happened on our playing field.”
Christenson also apologized in the statement: “What I did is unacceptable and I deeply apologize.”
Follow Dylan Gwinn on Twitter @themightygwinn
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