Who says there is nothing to talk about in the sports world in July?
Actually, there really isn’t all that much to talk about which is why David Beckham’s arrival in L.A., the ESPYs and other worthless events clog up sports media outlets.
And it also is a perfect time for Gary Sheffield to get too much press on ridiculous racial comments.
To make a long story short, Sheffield said on HBO’s Real Sports on Tuesday night that New York Yankees manager Joe Torre treated black players differently than white players. He shared his thoughts on interracial children and whether or not they are black with a personal attack on former teammate Derek Jeter.
Earlier this year, Sheffield mouthed off about race, and the sports world hoped it would be his 15 minutes of fame this summer. Well, during the slow times of talk radio and sports television, HBO wired up The Shef and asked him about race and the Yankees. His answers should be ignored. Yet, hundreds of hours have been devoted to this knucklehead.
What is disgusting is that Sheffield makes it almost impossible for there to be a real discussion on race bias. Racists are happy to say all claims of racism are just like Sheffield’s. Fair-minded people will be afraid of speaking out against real bias because they will be called “a Sheffield.”
Here is the biggest race discrimination story of the week.
Walgreen’s had been charged with racial discrimination by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission last year. The EEOC under President Bush has pursued fewer cases than any EEOC since Ronald Reagan was president. Yet, it pursued the allegations of discrimination and – lo and behold – Walgreen’s announced it had reached a $20 million settlement with the plaintiffs and also promised to treat black managers more fairly in the future.
Sheffield made the national evening news last week. Walgreen’s did not.
Another case of misguided honesty came from St. Louis Argus columnist Charlie “Tuna” Edwards. Let the SportsEye state that it has no problem with Charlie. However, his column last week actually OKs racism in sports. By his logic, Missouri basketball coach Mike Anderson should not have suspended Kalen Grimes after the player struck a guy in the face with the butt-end of a shotgun last week during an altercation in Florissant. This came two days after Anderson laid down a “zero tolerance” policy after his nephew and Tigers player DeMarre Carroll was shot outside a Columbia nightclub. Had “Tuna” said that the player should not have been suspended until all evidence was in, that’s one thing. But he reasoned that Anderson should not have suspended Grimes because the coach is black and the player is black.
Hopefully, Tuna is just looking for reaction and really didn’t mean what he wrote last week.
While the Sheffield comments are inexcusable, and Tuna’s column is alarming, the most racist comments this month allegedly came from boxing promoter Gary Shaw.
Shaw reportedly called one of his own fighters “a black monkey,” according to a taped interview with boxer Anthony Hanshaw’s manager Bryan Justus.
Justus told a reporter the following, “There were a lot of things said by him [Shaw] but one of the biggest things said by him, which I thought was a racial slur, was that he would put me and my black freaking monkey out of business and that he runs the show and Tony [Hanshaw] belongs to him.”
The interview was taped on July 13 in Biloxi at the Imperial Hotel and Casino.
“Yeah I was floored, but I’m actually the kind of guy who sits back and listen more than I speak but when I get to a point where I feel I need to speak then I will speak. I try to be selective in my choice of words but when he said that it threw me for a loop. I couldn’t believe it.”
Shaw denied making the statement and offered to take a lie detector test. Shaw promoted the Hanshaw vs. Roy Jones Jr. bout on July 14 in Biloxi; Jones won easily.
Shaw, who owns Gary Shaw Promotions, maintains continuous partnerships with powerful boxing networks HBO and Showtime. He is also the promoter of light heavyweight star Chad Dawson and top contender Vivian Harris, both of whom are black.
Browns day for black players
Dwayne Isrig of St. Louis shares this letter with the American:
July 17, 2007 was the 60th anniversary of a momentous day in sports history. On July 17, 1947 the St. Louis Browns became the third major league team to hire African-American players. The Brooklyn Dodgers did it first with Jackie Robinson, the Cleveland Indians were second (but first in the American League) with Larry Doby, but the Browns took it one step further.
They signed Henry Thompson and Willard Brown, both from the Kansas City Monarchs, and Thompson and Brown became the first two black teammates at the Major League level in the 20th century. It was a busy week 60 years ago for Richard Muckerman, Bill DeWitt Sr. (the daddy of current majority Cardinals owner) and the Browns as the team also signed two other African-American players. Lorenzo “Piper” Davis of the Birmingham Black Barons was signed to a 30-day option with the Browns though he and the Browns later could not agree to terms of payment (Davis was making more money with the Black Barons that the Browns were willing to pay) and he was released without ever playing for the Browns. Charles “Chuck” Harmon was also signed by the Browns and he played for Class C Gloversville-Johnstown, NY in the Canadian-American League. Harmon is the only one of the four who finished the season for the Browns’ organization. Thompson and Brown were released (supposedly for not reaching major league standards though the duo did not help boast attendance the way the Browns had anticipated) by the Browns in August after six weeks in the American League and they were re-signed by the Kansas City Monarchs. Thompson later played for the New York Giants and played in the 1951 and 1954 World Series. Brown never played in the majors again though last summer he was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown based on his years spent in the Negro Leagues and in Latin America. Davis finished the season with the Black Barons and he never played for a major league club though he was Willie Mays’ manager when Mays’ played in Birmingham. Harmon and his team in Gloversville-Johnstown finished in second place in the Canadian-American League. In 1954, Harmon became the first African-American to play for the Cincinnati Reds.”