The Latest: Reporter lauds Cubs for response to fan gesture

CHICAGO (AP) — The Latest on the Chicago Cubs‘ investigation of a potentially racist hand gesture seen during a broadcast of a game against Miami (all times local):

1:15 p.m.

An NBC Sports Chicago reporter says the Chicago Cubs have reached out to him after a fan at Wrigley Field appeared to make a hand gesture associated with racism behind him while he was on the air.

The reporter was Doug Glanville, a former major league outfielder who played three seasons for the Cubs. Glanville, who is African American, was standing beside a dugout discussing the Cubs’ surging offense with play-by-play announcer Len Kasper when a bearded fan seated in the background started gesturing.

The man made an upside-down “OK” sign near Glanville’s head. The gesture is associated with the juvenile “circle game,” where someone tries to trick a friend a friend or sibling into looking at it and then punch their opponent in the shoulder. But it has also become a white supremacy sign.

The team is investigating and may permanently ban the fan.

Glanville praised the Cubs and says they have “displayed sensitivity as to how the implications of this would affect me as a person of color.”

NBC Sports Chicago senior vice president and general manager Kevin Cross called the fan’s behavior “reprehensible.”