Toronto Blue Jays cut ties with Anthony Bass after anti-LGBTQ social media post

June 9 (UPI) -- The Toronto Blue Jays let go of pitcher Anthony Bass on Friday after he shared an anti-LGBTQ post on social media last month.

The 35-year-old pitcher shared a post calling for anti-LGBTQIA+ boycotts of Target and Bud Light, according to ESPN. The post described the sale of LGBTQIA+ merchandise as "evil" and "demonic."

Bass later apologized for the comments but had been booed by Toronto fans at the Rogers Centre afterward.

The move comes soon before the Blue Jays' first game of Pride Weekend. Blue Jays general manager Ross Atkins told CNN that Bass's performance was the main decision for the move.

"Performance was a large aspect of the decision," Atkins said. "Distraction was a small part of it and something we had to factor in."

"I'm saying we're trying to build the best possible team we can build and this was a baseball decision to make our team better," he added.

On Thursday, Bass again apologized for the post but also said that he stands by his personal beliefs.

"The video itself, obviously, I took it down," Bass said. "I just felt like it was too much of a distraction, right? But I stand by my personal beliefs and everyone's entitled to their personal beliefs, right? But also I mean no harm toward any groups of people. And I felt like taking that down the second time was the right thing to do and not being a distraction. As a team, our job is to win baseball games. And that's my focus."