Rob Manfred says MLB looking into guidelines for racist taunts at ballparks

Four days after Baltimore Orioles star Adam Jones was the subject of racial slurs in a game at Boston, Commissioner Rob Manfred said the league office is consulting with all 30 teams to ensure both players and fans do not feel threatened.

Manfred, paying a visit to Target Field on Friday, said before the Twins-Red Sox game that Major League Baseball is "gathering information from clubs to get a good feel for what their practices are … so we can provide our players with an environment where they feel comfortable in every major league stadium that they play. We want to make sure that we know exactly what the clubs are doing before we start recommending changes."

Manfred spent much of the week addressing the Fenway Park controversy. The Red Sox banned another fan for life for making a racist remark Tuesday night. Other major leaguers maintained they have heard similar remarks.

"We're in the process of gathering information right now," Manfred said. "With respect to drawing particularly African-American fans, our goal is to have an environment in all our ballparks that is welcoming to fans. We work hard to have a family-friendly and diversity-friendly environment and we will continue to do that."

On other topics, pace of play continues to be an area of focus for the commissioner. The average major league game lasted exactly three hours last season, and MLB instituted automatic intentional bases on balls this season, with some other tinkering.

"Our focus is not on length as much as it is pace … eliminating dead time," Manfred said. "The length of a game sometimes is dictated by things that you never can control — how many runs get scored, whatever, how many pitches get thrown.

"When we think about changes to the game, the ones that are easiest are things like batters stepping out of the box, catcher visits to the mound, things like that that really there's no competitive issue associated with that particular behavior. There is plenty of that dead time in the game that we can take out."

Asked about the possibility of an MLB franchise in Mexico, Manfred said he wanted regular-season games there, but his overall goal was to build a strong pro league south of the border. Manfred also said MLB continues to have hope for new ballparks for the Oakland Athletics and Tampa Bay Rays, although he called the markets "our two most acute challenges."