Long-time Yankee Stadium guest and “God Bless America” singer Ronan Tynan will not be a part of the rest of the Yanks’ October run after making anti-Semitic remarks earlier this week. NBC New York broke the story earlier today:
The trouble began on Thursday when the 49-year-old Tynan bumped into a Halstead Property real estate agent showing an apartment on his floor to a potential buyer, a pediatrician from NYU Medical Center. The real estate agent said to the tenor, famous for his association with Yankees, “Don’t worry they are not Red Sox fans,” according to the apartment-hunter, Dr. Gabrielle Gold-von Simson.
To which Tynan replied, “I don’t care about that, as long as they are not Jewish,” Gabrielle Gold-von Simson told NBC New York. “Why is that?” asked a flabbergasted Gold-von Simson of the singer.
And Tynan responded that Jewish ladies had been looking at the apartment before and they were “scary,” according to Gold-von Simson. The singer now claims he was joking, but the good doctor didn’t see it that way. “I didn’t know him at all so how could I take it as a joke,” said Gold-von Simson.
How could anyone really take that as a joke? It’s blatantly anti-Semitic and not funny at all.
Meanwhile, Tynan attempted to apologize today but simply succeeded in putting his foot in his month. He tried to old “some of my best friends are Jewish” line and offered up a mea culpa. “It was stupid of me to be so callous, and I would never want to hurt anybody’s feelings,” Tynan said to NBC today. “It’s something misfortunate. I was too stupid with my mouth.”
The Yankees have unsurprisingly canceled Tynan’s scheduled singing of “God Bless America” tonight. Although Kevin Kaduk at Big League Stew can’t imagine a Bronx October without Tynan, I won’t miss him.