Minor league team apologizes for video calling Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez an 'enemy of freedom'

The Fresno Grizzlies, the Triple-A affiliate of the Washington Nationals, issued an apology on Monday night for showing a Memorial Day tribute video calling Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez an “enemy of freedom.”

The clip, spotted on the Grizzlies’ videoboard and dug up on YouTube by Fresno Bee reporter Carmen George, shows mostly patriotic imagery over a patriotic Ronald Reagan speech until it intersperses photos of Ocasio-Cortez and members of Antifa with those of Kim Jung Un and Fidel Castro while Reagan is discussing the nation’s enemies.

The team claimed that the video was not fully vetted before airing at the stadium, and apologized to Ocasio-Cortez, fans and the community:

As Bill Baer points out for NBC Sports, the Grizzlies’ explanation certainly seems plausible. Minor league team employees are not nearly as specialized or well-compensated as their Major League counterparts, and there’s a non-zero chance the person put in charge of finding a Memorial Day tribute video to play also had to sell tickets and pull tarp on his or her holiday weekend. That doesn’t make it excusable, but airing the video seems as likely an honest mistake as someone’s politically charged intention.