Dishonoring Jackie Robinson
This whole Jackie Robinson celebration thing has gotten out of hand. When I first heard about Ken Griffey, Jr., wanting to wear number 42 as a tribute, I thought it was a decently nice gesture, but not really worth a second thought. A few more players started to announce that they would as well, and I shrugged it off as a gesture that was becoming "the thing to do." Then I heard the entire Dodgers team would be doing it, and I thought it was absurd and overly-gimmicky. If I thought that about the Dodgers doing it, well, you can imagine how I felt once other teams starting jumping into the fold. It got significant play on the ESPN Baseball Today podcast by Alan Schwarz, who seems a bit too interested in race issues (I'm basing that assessment on previous experience, not just his latest). If you ever wanted to destroy a baseball hero, this 60th anniversary celebration is the way to do it.
Even worse than the normal stuff, is Keith Law trotting out the standard p.c. claptrap about how the team names of the Indians and Braves are insensitive. Perhaps white northners should taken exception to the Yankees. Sea-faring men of all stripes must surely feel deeply hurt and offended by the Mariners. Communists can hardly stand Cincinatti's derogatory slur of a team name, and Queen Elizabeth II must cry herself to sleep after watching Kansas City in action.
There's also the hand-wringing about the decline of African-American baseball players. However, aside from the foolishness of the task to begin with, these leave out the number of Hispanic black players. The number I saw was 9% of all major-leaguers. Well, the black proportion of America's population is about 12%, and foreign-born players have begun to make up a large subsection of the population of major leaguers. I see no problem with this. Should we complain about the lack of whites on professional basketball teams? Until these race hucksters realize that blacks already have a disproportionately large representation among pro athletes to begin with, they're not even worth listening to. Frankly, they're not worth listening to after that, either. I am sickened by people who believe the measure of a man is the color of his skin, and that's what these people are.
Even worse than the normal stuff, is Keith Law trotting out the standard p.c. claptrap about how the team names of the Indians and Braves are insensitive. Perhaps white northners should taken exception to the Yankees. Sea-faring men of all stripes must surely feel deeply hurt and offended by the Mariners. Communists can hardly stand Cincinatti's derogatory slur of a team name, and Queen Elizabeth II must cry herself to sleep after watching Kansas City in action.
There's also the hand-wringing about the decline of African-American baseball players. However, aside from the foolishness of the task to begin with, these leave out the number of Hispanic black players. The number I saw was 9% of all major-leaguers. Well, the black proportion of America's population is about 12%, and foreign-born players have begun to make up a large subsection of the population of major leaguers. I see no problem with this. Should we complain about the lack of whites on professional basketball teams? Until these race hucksters realize that blacks already have a disproportionately large representation among pro athletes to begin with, they're not even worth listening to. Frankly, they're not worth listening to after that, either. I am sickened by people who believe the measure of a man is the color of his skin, and that's what these people are.
posted by DC | 7:15 PM
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