Fresno city councilmembers meet with Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to apologize for Grizzlies video

The California city of Fresno is attempting to smooth things over with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez after its Triple-A Fresno Grizzlies aired a “misleading” and “offensive” video during a Memorial Day doubleheader.

Fresno city council members met with the New York congresswoman on Wednesday morning in Washington, D.C., per the Fresno Bee, to put the Washington Nationals’ affiliate’s “social media distraction behind.”

AOC meets with Fresno reps

Fresno city council members Miguel Arias and Esmeralda Soria were in D.C. this week to discuss passing the Dream Act — which went through Tuesday — as well as the lack of clean drinking water in communities. The duo met with Ocasio-Cortez while they were there.

Arias and Soria said in a statement, via the Fresno Bee:

“We also had the opportunity to meet with Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to discuss these matters and to apologize for an honest mistake that occurred over Memorial Weekend. Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was gracious with her time and expressed her support for our Grizzly organization and city.

“We also extended to Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez an invitation to join other national leaders in visiting our city to hear directly from residents about the need for clean water, health care and jobs.”

They gifted Ocasio-Cortez, often shortened to “AOC,” with Grizzlies swag that included a T-shirt and posed for smiling photos.

The meeting included Jim Costa, California’s representative for the district covering Fresno.

Will AOC visit Fresno?

It’s the headline most local media is going with: Will AOC visit our city? The city council members extended an invite to the New York progressive who shocked the nation by winning her November election and has grown in popularity beyond the borders of Brooklyn and Queens.

Shortly after it went viral, Ocasio-Cortez responded to the video, which equated her with Kim Jong Un and Fidel Castro as “enemies of freedom,” but she did not say anything specific about Fresno nor the team.

She explained in a thread of tweets that videos like the one the team aired result in death threats to her and her office. The hateful messages mean she and her interns are constantly inundated with words that lead to a concern about their safety.

Ocasio-Cortez has not spoken about it since. Organizations, including two Heineken-owned beer companies, have dropped their sponsorships with the team.

Soria told GV Wire:

“AOC was gracious. She felt bad that this led to sponsorships being withdrawn.”

“She knows the role baseball teams have in creating jobs for a city.”

The Grizzlies apologized for the video and said an employee failed to properly vet it before it aired.

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