Washington Nationals business operations president apologizes for anti-Catholic scandal

The Washington Nationals president of baseball operations on May 29 apologized on live television to Catholic pitcher Trevor Williams, fans, and Catholics broadly for the anti-Catholic scandal connected to the team’s executive and denied that the team hides team members from social media. 

Jason Sinnarajah’s apology comes after O’Keefe Media Group released undercover footage May 26 of Director of Community Relations Sean Hudson saying the Nationals excluded Williams from certain social media content due to his faith, as Zeale News reported. He was reportedly fired May 29. 

James O’Keefe posted to X a video of Sinnarajah’s apology, during which he also denied that the Nationals track fans’ Google search history. Hudson had said in the undercover footage that the team employs data collection on fans. 

“It’s important for us to address with our fans head-on, and be open and transparent about what happened; first off I want to say unequivocally, we’re not anti-Catholic, I myself am Catholic,” Sinnarajah said. “We do not track people’s Google search history, we do not hide players from social media, even just last week we featured several players, including Trevor Williams actually, on Instagram as part of their visit to the Museum of the Bible.”

He continued, “All that being said, we’re horrified by the comments that were made on the video, the comments don’t reflect us as an organization, our values and who we are. We took action right away, and the individual is no longer employed by the team.”

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Sinnarajah then emphasized how the Nationals value Williams as a player and emphasized his remorse for the Catholic pitcher having been impacted. 

“I want to also take a minute and apologize to Trevor Williams, who’s been brought into this, we feel awful that he’s been dragged into this situation and hope that this hasn’t been a distraction as he gets ready to get back on the field, which, we’re excited to have him back on,” he said.

“Trevor’s a valued member of the organization, we’ve been proud to support him both on and off the field,” Sinnarajah said, noting that the Nationals nominated Williams for the prestigious 2025 MLB Roberto Clemente Award. “I think it’s important for our fans to understand that and hear from me directly on this one.”

The clip then cuts to Sinnarajah reiterating that the Nationals fans know “[the team’s] actions day in and day out, year after year.”

“We champion our players, what’s important to them; we stand by them,” Sinnarajah concluded. “Baseball’s a great unifier, that brings everybody together regardless of religion, or anything like that, so you know we’re going to continue making this ballpark a welcoming place, it’s what we strive to do, and again apologies to anyone that’s been offended by this but this is not indicative of how we are as an organization.”

O’Keefe stated on his X post connected to the video that he was happy to see the apology. He also indicated that further action was still needed. 

“Good first step to accountability,” O'Keefe wrote.