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RACISM & SPORTS 2: Dave Zirin "Bonds-Bashing: Bad Sport" Why Do They Hate Bonds & Revere Clemens? Remember, They Hated Aaron Even More. But They Were More Honest Bigots Then Than Now! - RI8 Repub 2/5
RACISM & SPORTS
2:
Dave Zirin
“Bonds-Bashing:
Bad Sport”
Why Do They Hate
Bonds & Revere
Clemens?
Remember, They
Hated Aaron Even
More. But They Were
More Honest Bigots
Then Than Now! -
RI8 Repub 2/5
Originally published May 21, 2007
Oh how America loved the Bambino! Of course, he never competed against Blacks because Negroes were not allowed to play in the Majors during Ruth’s time. I wanted to publish a picture of Ruth with a bottle or a glass in his hand. He was equally well-known for his liquor as he was for baseball. But I couldn’t find any photos of him imbibing. I wonder why!
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-zirin20may20,0,4016487.story?coll=la-sunday-commentary
From the Los Angeles Times
Bonds-Bashing: Bad Sport
By Dave Zirin
May 20, 2007
IT TAKES QUITE THE sportsman to inspire a call for a "smiting". But Barry Bonds, closing in on Henry Aaron's all-time home run record, might just be the first jock since the young Cassius Clay to inspire such biblical animus.
In her regular ESPN.com column, Jemele Hill, one of the few African American women with a high-profile voice in sports journalism, recently wrote: "God, can you smite Barry Bonds before he breaks Major League Baseball's all-time home run record? (OK, maybe smiting is a little extreme. Could you conjure up some locusts every time he bats? Give him a few boils? Crack a stone tablet over his head?)". She also wrote, "If Bonds breaks the home run record, it will be like the O.J. Simpson trial all over again". The difference (which she failed to note) is that Bonds hasn't been charged with a double homicide.
Actor Robert Blake (pictured in this 1993 photo) is charged with murdering his wife, Bonny Lee Bakley, and is facing life in prison. Prosecutors say Blake killed Bakley to end his 'marriage of convenience'. The defense says prosecutors have the wrong guy.
http://www.courttv.com/trials/blake/photo_gallery/index.html
Tabacco: ‘Little Beaver’, ‘Baretta’, ho-hum!
O J Simpson: MURDER TRIAL OF THE CENTURY!
You don’t need Tabacco to recap this one!
Among sports columnists, Hill's antipathy toward Bonds is hardly unique. Most have taken shots at the player they decry as a "cheater" because of widespread suspicions that he used steroids to improve his performance. The attacks range from the horrible (John Seibel's oh-so-tongue-in-cheek comments on ESPN Radio that if Bonds does it, we should "hang him") to the ridiculous (for instance, Jeff Pearlman, former Sports Illustrated writer and the author of "The Bad Guys Won", recently regaled a TV audience with tales of Bonds refusing to pick up his underwear from locker-room floors and how the now 42-year-old punched somebody in high school).
It would all be amusing if such snarky comments didn't have real consequences. The anti-Bonds cottage industry has become so bombastic, so disproportionate to his alleged offenses, that it is having an ugly and divisive effect on society.
Tabacco: As if that were not already the case! Remember, “It ain’t RACISM, if I say it ain’t RACISM!”
Consider an ESPN/ABC News poll released this month. Black fans are more than twice as likely as their white counterparts to want Bonds to break Aaron's record of 755 homers (74% to 28%) and nearly twice as likely to think that the slugger has been treated unfairly (46% to 25%), according to the poll. Black and white supporters of Bonds were then asked why they believed that the slugger is so hated. About 41% of black fans said suspected steroids use was the reason, while 25% cited race and 21% blamed Bonds' "in your face" attitude. By contrast, two-thirds of white sympathizers cited the steroids issue, with virtually none mentioning race.
When asked about the poll, Hill said, "It's too bad some people are more concerned with race than right. Blacks have been unjustly persecuted in the court of law and public opinion, but supporting one lout doesn't erase, compensate or change those injustices".
But the black-white divide on Bonds is not about people being "more concerned with race than right". Rather, it represents a visceral response to the way Bonds has been subjected to criticism when white players with reputations of steroid use haven't gotten nearly the heat he has. For instance, suspicions have swirled around future Hall of Fame pitcher, Roger Clemens, but he hasn't received the level of media and investigative scrutiny that Bonds has.
New York Yankees pitcher Roger Clemens throws from the mound during a bullpen session at the Yankees' minor league complex Tuesday, May 15, 2007 in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Steve Nesius)
http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=3186474
Tabacco: Roger Clemens is somewhere between 40 and death, but still throws in mid-90s. They are broadcasting Roger’s Minor League pitching efforts before he is ready to join the Yankees! Everybody knows Roger didn’t get to keep all that “heat” just from exercising. Did someone say HGH! Shhhhhhh! Let’s keep it to ourselves. Only Blacks and maybe Hispanics would cheat, right? Certainly not a 100% White man! And if he did cheat, America would still love him. Oh to be White in America!
I have been a guest on both mainstream sports and black radio, and the Bonds discussion is like visiting two alternative universes. Mainstream radio is a veritable "I Hate Barry" parade. Callers typically deflect charges of racism by saying, "We're not racists. We just hate his guts because he's a cheater!"
But on black radio, I am sometimes seriously asked, "Do you think Bonds will be physically harmed?" That I'm asked such a question points up how dangerous the atmosphere surrounding Bonds' march to history has become.
The federal government has exacerbated the situation. The FBI has approached players about wearing a wire in an effort to get Bonds on tape admitting steroid use. Mike Celizic, who reported the story for MSNBC, called the investigation a "witch hunt. It's not about cleaning up the game; it's about putting Barry Bonds in jail".
Another reporter quoted an FBI agent as saying: "He's our Capone".
The question is why do so many people despise Bonds? Comparing him with O.J. and Al Capone is outlandish on its face.
The man can be surly, one of more than a few star athletes you would not want to be trapped with in an elevator. Clemens can be as pleasant as a bobcat, and Larry Bird wasn't Mr. Sunshine during his NBA playing days. But, when it comes to Bonds, the media have called for everything but a big scarlet "S" on his chest, all of which has the appearance of a hellacious double standard.
Yes, the man is plagued by suspicions of steroid use. But despising a pro athlete for using performance-enhancing drugs is like hating a chef for cooking with trans fats. As the late Buck O'Neil, the Negro Leagues star, said, "The only reason we didn't use steroids is we didn't have them".
Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig claims with a straight face that, until quite recently, he wasn't even aware that steroids were a problem. President Bush owned the Texas Rangers at a time when Jose Canseco was turning the clubhouse into a McSteroids franchise. Fans cheered as players burst their uniforms with unholy biceps. Major League Baseball embraced the cheeky slogan "chicks dig the long ball" as the homers flew. The point is we can do a better job of spreading around the sanctimony instead of placing it on one man's shoulders.
Bonds' pursuit of one of baseball's hallowed records will probably have an ugly ending. Selig has said he will not attend any games in which Bonds might pass Aaron. This is an ugly echo of former Commissioner Bowie Kuhn's refusal to be in attendance when Aaron broke Babe Ruth's record in 1974. Kuhn's decision had racial overtones. For many, Selig's will carry the same divisive weight.
Bowie Kuhn: Racist Bigot or Southern Gentleman?
According to the Internet, he deserves Sainthood!
(Born in Maryland; attended University of Virginia)
Bud Selig: just one more Caucasian Hypocrite in a long list of Caucasian Hypocrites!
[Dave Zirin is the author of the "The Muhammad Ali Handbook" (MQ Publications) and the forthcoming "Welcome to the Terrordome”.
"I'm hoping someday that some kid, black or white, will hit more home runs than myself. Whoever it is, I'd be pulling for him." - Hank Aaron
http://www.baseball-almanac.com/players/p_aaroh4.shtml
Hammering Hank, or anybody else, would have to be a blooming idiot to be truly pleased to see anyone else break his record! That’s a politically correct comment as is, “Records are meant to be broken!” IT’S ALL LIES; OK WHITE LIES!
My question is this: Whom did Aaron murder? Ruth was dead already when Hank hit 715. I guess you don’t need an excuse to hate a Negro!
Barry Bonds, Heir Apparent? Puke! Maybe it’s the suntan!
Attention all you Doubting Thomases: Michael Jackson must have known something when he decided to become Caucasian.
Tabacco: Note how squeaky-clean all the White guys are (even Robert Blake was swept under the Media Carpet). And the Black guys are all Pariahs! That’s what passes for Fairness in America. If you’re White, you may never have even noticed this American Double Standard.
Malcolm X
Martin Luther King
Medgar Evers
Emmett Till
Rosa Parks
Muhammad Ali (Parkinson’s Disease in lieu of death)
Paul Robeson
Frederick Douglass
Jack Johnson
Stokely Carmichael
Marcus Garvey
James Chaney
Robert Smalls
All Pariahs to White America while they lived! Hank Aaron is the lucky one – hatred for him has waned even before his death. Love? I think not! Among all these Black Pariahs, only Michael Jackson is truly loved – by some. Pass the Artra Skin Tone Cream, please!
Tabacco: I consider myself both a funnel and a filter. I funnel information, not readily available on the Mass Media, which is ignored and/or suppressed. I filter out the irrelevancies and trivialities to save both the time and effort of my Readers and bring consternation to the enemies of Truth & Fairness! When you read Tabacco, if you don’t learn something NEW, I’ve wasted your time.
In 1981's 'Body Heat', Kathleen Turner said, "Knowledge is power".
T.A.B.A.C.C.O. (Truth About Business And Congressional Crimes Organization)