we've heard the word "despicable" uesd a few times so far this baseball postseason ... tim mc carver called manny's behavior in the final days in boston despicable ... the big lead suggests brett myers is more despicable for smacking his wife around on a boston street corner several summers ago ... so i'll steal it for here ... ken rosenthal's 10/14 foxsports.com column headlined will non-white free agents shun the sox? is despicable ... despicable in content and timing .. i'll get to content in a minute ... but let's talk timing now ... my question is ... why now ... i don't get it ... the defending world champion boston red sox are being beaten and battered by a very impressive, young and talented baseball team ... with a relentless offensive attack ... and pitching worthy of october ... so ken rosenthal decides to focus on the red sox racial make-up ... instead of the really kewl story of the tampa bay rays ... and he does it all the way from los angeles ... where he is covering the national league championship series ... he isn't even here ... the article seems to be talking about free agents ... but it's not free agent season yet ... and this column follows one of less than 5 months ago where rosenthal said of the red sox
"the red sox are a better example of a melting pot, but they are not just a cultural melting pot ... the sox are a blend of players young and old, gifted and ordinary, wealthy and hungry ... the pieces — from manny ramirez to dustin pedroia, daisuke matsuzaka to jonathan papelbon — could not be more disparate ... but somehow, under the leadership of manager terry francona, they all pull toward a common goal"does this ll-timed turd on the table have it's origins in rosenthal's and larry lucchino's years in baltimore ... is this just another piece in the amazing effort of national and west coast media assclowns to somehow cleanse the image of manny ramirez ... to quote dlowe from several years back ... "i don't get it" ... "can someone explain that one to me"
whatever the explanation ... for me the column is out of context ... dated ... inflammatory ... self-serving ... appealing to the worst in impassioned sports fans ... their hate side ... hatred which has been enabled and intensified by the anonymity of the internet ... if this column had been open to reader feedback ... there would be 1,500 responses by now ... a third acknowledging the red sox ugly past and defending the present ... and two-thirds filled with thoughts of hatred ... in baseball's october ... ken rosenthal is out of order ... as was scott boros when he interrupted last october to announce a-rod's contract opt-out ... and espn's rick reilly during this summer's all-star home run derby ... when he commented so ingorantly and so out of nowhere ... "it looks like a kuwanis club meeting out there or something" referring to the racial make-up of the 8 derby contestants
ok so now it's time to talk content ... and i'm probably going to be long-winded
"the trade of left fielder manny ramirez and loss of shortstop julio lugo to injury left the sox with a predominantly caucasian roster"manny ramirez ... who was traded by the red sox after manny's "predominantly caucasian" teammates told general manager theo epstein now was the time for manny to go ... considering their "back against the wall" trading position ... the red sox should be applauded for acquiring a more than adequate replacement for manny ... instead, the replacement becomes a bad thing because he is the very caucasian and very canadian jason bay
julio lugo ... who was an offensive disappointment and a defensive disaster at shortstop for the first 100 days of the season ... then spent the next 60 days disabled and nursing a pulled and re-pulled muscle ... maybe here the red sox should be applauded for the depth of their farm system ... for having a major league ready replacement for lugo ... instead, they are chastized because the replacement is the very caucasian jed lowrie
further into the column rosenthal mentions bartolo colon ... the dominican pitcher the red sox signed as a minor league free agent last spring ... the pitcher rosenthal says "didn't last" ... the very bartolo colon who quit on the team the last week of the season ... don't give a damn if he didn't want work out of the bullpen ... he was under contract ... and he packed his bags full of banana cream pies and headed home to the dominican ... maybe bartolo could have made a difference in the extra innings of game 2 against the rays ... and before that in the extra's out in anaheim ... but his teammates will never know ... because he quit on them ... and made them more caucasian
"why bring this up now, with the red sox in the american league championship series? ... well, the free-agent market will open in about a month ... the makeup of the red sox's roster could be a concern for players they pursue, whether it's this offseason or in the future"this paragraph totally confuses me ... rosenthal asks "why now" ... and answers with "the free-agent market will open in about a month" ... and i'm sitting here asking "why now" ... why not "in about a month" ... if his point is free agency ... why not when "the free-agent market will open"
"the sox's composition is surprising in an era in which rosters are more diverse than at any point in the game's history, even as the number of african-american players continues to decline"
surprising mr rosenthal ... hmmm ... and that would be because you singled them out less than 6 months ago as "a better example of a melting pot" ... or because they had 3 dominican players who let their teammates down to one degree or another
"if not for the red sox's past, if not for boston's reputation, the issue might not be even worth raising"the very fact that "the red sox past" is in the past ... that the "boston's reputation" you refer to is so dated ... makes the non-issue not worth raising ... is mr rosenthal aware that boston is the capital of massachusetts ... where the sitting governor of the state is african-americam ... and where the first african-american president of the united states may well capture a greater percentage of the total popular vote than in any other state in 3 weeks
"the question is not whether the red sox are turning away from blacks and latins ... in recent years, they have parted not only with high-profile dominican stars such as ramirez and pitcher pedro martinez, but also high-profile white players such as outfielder johnny damon and pitcher derek lowe"
toward making the rosenthal case ... this paragraph is essentially a wash ... it is interesting to me for a couple reasons ... first, it is incomplete ... in addition to damon and lowe ... the sox have also parted with world series champion "white players" trot nixon, bill meuller, kevin millar, mark bellhorn and keith foulke ... second, it mentions "dominican stars" ramirez and martinez and "high-profile white players" damon and lowe in a single sentence ... two future hall of famers who had the best years of their careers in a boston red sox uniform ... and at the same time, two of the most selfish, me before team players in red sox history ... with two card carrying members of "dirt dog" nation ... you sure won't find manny or pedro mentioned among the jimmy fund heroes in red sox history ... and you won't find manny's signature in the guest book at walter reed army hospital
"also this season, the sox have added two more white prospects — shortstop jed lowrie, who got his chance when lugo went down with a strained left quad, and reliever justin masterson — to a group that already included first baseman kevin youkilis, second baseman dustin pedroia, closer jonathan papelbon and left-hander jon lester ... youkilis, papelbon and pedroia are all-stars, while lester already has thrown a no-hitter and won a world series clincher ... not even the most skeptical observer could argue with the sox's motives in advancing those players ... their trade of hanley ramirez, a dominican shortstop who became a star, for right hander josh beckett, a white pitcher who became an ace, also made perfect sense"
"not even the most skeptical observer could argue" ... so why are you mr rosenthal ... my hair hurts about now ... and my head keeps hearing dlowe's words ... "i don't get it" ... "can someone explain that one to me"
"to some, though, the perception of the city is still negative. ... in 2004, barry bonds said he would not play in boston because it was "too racist"
for me ... this single sentence evidences better than any the sleezy side of the entire column ... a more fair phrasing might have been "bonds once called the city of boston racist despite never having been here" ... exactly what barry said was this
"boston is too racist for me ... i couldn't play there ... that's been going on ever since my dad (bobby) was playing baseball ... i can't play like that ... that's not for me, brother"
so when barry bonds called boston "too racist" ... he was essentially relying on third hand perceptions ... perceptions formed from his father, the late bobby bonds, back in the 1970's ... perceptions bourne out of bobby's friendship with former red sox outfielder reggie smith ... ignorance comes in all forms
the bigger sin is the sentence is not followed by any comment about how barry felt about boston after he actually visited here last summer ... the problem here is rosenthal googled "barry bonds hates boston" ... and he found a page which he relies on for a good part of this article ... i googled "barry bonds loves boston" and i found this blog entry by boston.com columnist eric wilbur ... on bonds' boston experience, wilbur writes
"bonds once called the city of Boston racist despite never having been here, but it was a statement he seemed to retreat from last summer when his giants visited fenway, saying how much he enjoyed the city ... his son spent time at valley view school in north brookfield, a private boarding school ... and as one teammate summed up the slugger's experience here last summer:
"he genuinely enjoyed himself here ... he walked around the city a lot and people were really nice to him ... they weren't yelling at him, or yelling stuff at him or anything like that ... people were very respectful of him ... i think for a lot of us, this was kind of a test because we heard boston would be rough on him ... in the ballpark, sure there were the asterisks that people were holding up, and the "steroids!" chants and all the things he's seen and heard before ... so that part wasn't any different ... the part that was different is the reception he got on the streets ... and even the reception he got when he hit the home run"
"yet, fairly or not, ramirez's messy divorce with the red sox could raise suspicions that the team prefers a certain type of player — unassuming, conformist, white ... the current makeup of the team's roster might create similar notions, even as the red sox say that nothing could be further from the truth"
"fairly or not" ... "could raise suspicions" ... mr rosenthal i believe you have wasted my time raising unfair suspicions in this column ... "might create similar notions" ... mr rosenthal i believe similar notions find their origins in inflamatory writings like this ... "nothing could be further from the truth" ... mr rosenthal i believe that can be said about your entire premise here
"the sox's agenda is winning ... they would be foolish to start acquiring mediocre non-white players to achieve greater racial balance ... but frankly, my opinion doesn't matter ... the players with choices will decide"
"my opinion does't matter" ... after reading the back and forth of this column ... i'm not really certain what mr rosenthal's opinion really is ... but whatever it is ... i guess he believes if his opinion is right ... it might hinder the red sox ability to sign certain free agents
i probably could say more ... but i'm tired of mr rosenthal's column ... i'm tired of his premise ... i'm most tired of media assclowns like ken rosenthal who write agenda driven garbage like this ... so i will stop soon
somewhere down the road ... after los angeles dodgers owner frank mc court lets "non-caucasian" manny ramirez find his next fortune with the mets ... it wouldn't surprise me to find mr rosenthal suggesting "there might be a perception" mc court's decision was influenced by his upbringing in "racist boston"
rosenthal does a weekly 30 minutes every wednesday on sports radio 850 weei ... he appears on the mid-day show with the very white dale arnold ... and the very black michael holley ... i have listened to this week's discussion several times ... a discussion which occurred just moments before rosenthal's column was scheduled to be posted on foxsports.com ... and i get the feeling dale and michael were treading very carefully in their discussion of this article ... like they wanted to push ... but didn't for fear of making rosenthal break down and cry ... rosenthal's contribution to the discussion ... pure cya
at one point michael asks ken why he ... as an african american member of the media ... would consider joining fox's "all-caucasian" baseball team ... comprised of joe buck, tim mc carver, jeannie zelasko, kevin kennedy, eric karros, mark grace and ken rosenthal ... ken responds the situations are not analogous ... i'm hearing dlowe again
ken says "i can write whatever i want in this country" ... yes you can mr high and mighty media assclown ... you asked that i read word for word ... i have read every word ... over and over ... and what i see is your manipulation of a "fluky snapshot in time" (your words) as "code" (your word) for enflaming 21st century cyberspace enabled hatred among impassioned sports fans ... just like with ballplayers ... over at fox "it's all about the money" ... "hits" mean money ... and hatred in sports gets "hits" ... truly despicable
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