Irish singer dumped by New York Yankees after anti-Semitic remark

The Irish ‘God Bless America’ singer Ronan Tynan was dumped by the New York Yankees baseball club following anti-Semitic comments, the team said. Tynan, familiar to fans for singing ‘God Bless America’ break at Yankees play-off games, was absent last Friday for the first game of the Yankees' American League Championship Series with the Los Angeles Angels. The Yankees confirmed he had been dropped from the program because he had referred to prospective buyers at the apartment building he lives in as "scary" Jewish ladies.

He made the comment after a real estate agent had assured him the prospective buyers are not Red Sox fans."I don't care about that," Tynan said, "as long as they are not Jewish." The Yankees said Tynan had made the remark to Gabrielle Gold-von Simson, a New York University Medical Center pediatrician, who reported it to the Yankees front office. "He said it was a bad joke," team spokeswoman Alice McGillion said. "So we told him that was absolutely intolerable behavior and he needed to apologize." Tynan was not a Yankees employee, McGillion said, and the team had "no plans for him to sing" for the rest of the playoffs.