I’m going to give you a few words. You’ve heard them all before. Let’s call them Group A.
Toolsy. A great athlete. Freak. Stud. Horse. Specimen.
Got those? Here’s another list. You’ve heard these, too. Let’s call them Group B.
Hard worker. Student of the game. Crafty. Clever. Grinder. Gamer. Scrapper.
What do these two lists have in common? To the readers of the sports pages, these words are easily recognizable; they are the nomenclature of sports journalism. In point of fact, we, the sports fans, have even affected them for our own conversations about sports. However, it seems that in the minds of most sportswriters, the two groups do not have a damn thing in common. There is a certain group of athletes who fall under group A, and a certain group that falls under group B.
It is the rare case indeed, where a player from group A ever achieves to group B.
Of course, all of this is a bit abstract at this point, so let’s begin to unpack these models in terms of actual persons. On August 24, the final day of the Olympic Games, Bob Costas sat down to discuss the games with Jacques Rogge, Chairman of the International Olympic Committee at halftime of the U.S.-Spain Gold Medal basketball matchup. Costas, for once, eschewed the anecdotes and feel-good stories, and became a journalist, hammering Rogge with questions about China’s abysmal human rights record, the censoring of foreign journalists’ Internet access, and the controversial decision to eliminate softball and baseball from the Olympics, an effort largely spearheaded and overseen by Rogge since 2002. Rogge ably deflected the questions about human rights and censorship, but when it came to the question of why softball and baseball had been eliminated, he suddenly decided to be candid. His answer? Baseball’s PED problem. And Barry Bonds. In an extraordinary leap in logic, Rogge reasoned that baseball has a PED problem, many countries cannot differentiate softball from baseball, so softball suffered competitively because many countries did not send teams, because of the negative association of softball with baseball. But Rogge was curiously purposive in putting a face to the PED problem in baseball, in dropping just one name: Barry Bonds. While it stretched the bounds of use-mention distinctions, it was a masterful stroke. If there were medals for politicking, Rogge would mount a serious challenge for the gold, because Rogge quickly recognized that what Americans need most of all is a scapegoat, so he picked the biggest one in the room. And why not? Barry’s been blamed for everything from elbow pads to maple bats. Killing two Olympic sports is all in a day’s work for Barry Lamar Bonds.
See, remember that rare group I spoke about, the guys from group A that get to be in group B, as well? Well, Barry Bonds was one of those guys. A transcendent talent, yes, but also a smart guy, to boot, but when Barry got a bit too good, he didn’t kowtow to the sportswriters. He didn’t ask their permission to speak his mind. He wasn’t interested in TWIB fluff pieces or sound bites. He just did what he pleased. He was brash, confrontational, and intensely private. They called him “brooding.” A decade or two earlier, they’d have called him “uppity.” Barry had crawfished on the deal, you see, and the sportswriters never forgave him for it. They’d let him into the smart guy club, and he responded by getting mud on the carpet. Never mind that their shoes were just as dirty. Barry Bonds was going to become the face of the steroid problem.
A black face for the black spot on the white man’s game.
And because of Jacques Rogge, it’s happening all over again.
I’m going digress for a moment to say that this piece, and those forthcoming, should not be construed as referendum on whether or not Bonds used steroids, perjured himself, cheated on his taxes and his wife, or punched Jeff Kent. Those are conversations that, one, lie beyond the scope of this piece, and two, that I’m just not interested in having. In short, strawmannish comments that seek to argue those points will simply be ignored.
The point here is this: Why did Rogge know exactly which name to mention? I’m going to suggest an answer to that question in forthcoming installments, but for the moment, let it suffice to say that perhaps more so than any other sport, baseball carries a legacy of entrenched, institutionalized racism, and that past is reflected in the curious disparity in the coverage of white athletes and the coverage of African American and Hispanic athletes.
1. Jame Gumb, editor-in-chief ® — Sep 04, 2008 @ 02:45 AM
Pie: 1/5, 2 RBI
Vitters: 0/4
Flaherty: 2/4, 2B
Carpenter: 3.1 IP, 3 H, 0 ER, 7 K, 3 BB, 1 GO-1 FO