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Anatomy of a Rumor: The Montero for Soria Proposal

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 5:33 pm 15 Responses »
Jul 262010

A few days ago, Jon Heyman dropped this little nugget into a larger trade deadline article:

They say they want a bat for the bench and bullpen help, and that is true. But they can’t resist big-game hunting. They tried hard for Lee and Haren, and made a big proposal for Royals closer Joakim Soria, as well.

At the time, I largely dismissed the rumor, simply because the words “big proposal” have been thrown around a lot lately regarding packages headlined by players such as Ivan Nova. However, Jayson Stark seemed to add some context to that tidbit with the following whopper:

Lots of Zack Greinke and Joakim Soria rumors flying in Kansas City. But teams we’ve surveyed say they see no sign that either is going anywhere. The Yankees just made another run at Soria, as first reported by SI.com — even dangling Jesus Montero. But the Royals weren’t interested.

When this story was brought to me attention on Twitter, I told anybody who would listen that the offer never took place. Brian Cashman would be extremely unlikely to give up Montero for a reliever, and even Dayton Moore is not quite dumb enough to turn that deal down. After the journalistic debacle that was the Dan Haren saga, my distrust meter was on high and I wondered how such a story could get started. Luckily, an intrepid commenter at RAB deciphered what occured. Evan 3457 noted that in the chat below Stark’s article, he added the following:

“I think you’re misreading the Yankees on Montero, Anton. They’re not hell-bent to move him. They’re just deeper in catchers than at any other position. They can’t move him to first base because Mark Teixeira has that covered. They don’t want to clog up their DH position long-term because they need to use it for their aging players. But they’re only going to trade him for a star type player. They offered him for Cliff Lee but nor for Haren. And it sounds as if they told the Royals they’d talk about him for Soria. But that’s it — so far.”

“It sounds as if” seems to suggest that Stark is not really sure, and that he does not have concrete information to that effect. So how did he reach that conclusion? Let’s let Evan 3457 finish the point:

OK, so now that TSJ traced the Montero/Soria report back to Heyman, now I know why Stark said “it sounds as if”, because Heyman’s report said “big proposal”.

Stark is assuming the “big proposal” includes Montero, who’s never explicitly mentioned by Heyman in that offer.

The fact that Stark actually references the SI/Heyman story in his report seems to fit with this conclusion. I have no way of knowing whether this is true, but it certainly seems more logical to me than the idea that the Yankees offered Montero to KC and were rebuffed. If it turns out that Stark actually has a source and “it sounds as if” was just a turn of phrase of some sort, I apologize in advance. But if he was simply taking the word “big” from Heyman’s report and assuming Montero, or had another uncertain source and reported it as definitive fact, that seems a bit irresponsible to me. It is also indicative of the unstable nature of the rumors that we hear. As this little example and the entire NBA free agency saga illustrates, just because  something is reported by a mainstream writer does not make it accurate.

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On Anonymous Sources

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 1 Response »
Jun 292010

Those of you that follow me on Twitter know that I have recently been railing against the cloud of misinformation surrounding the impending NBA free agency season. On the same day, anonymous sources will be the basis for reports that have LeBron James going to Miami, Chicago, and New York. Conflicting reports continue to emerge, with “sources familiar with his thinking” and “people in the industry with knowledge of the situation” popping up everywhere. With the insanity reaching a fever pitch this week, ESPN ombudsman Don Ohlmeyer chimed in on the use of anonymous sources:

There is no question that some of America’s most important stories could never have been told without relying on sources who don’t want their names revealed: Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Guantánamo, etc. In earlier times, unnamed sources were used judiciously and required corroboration. But in the current atmosphere of instantaneous information, it seems that caution too often can be thrown to the wind, along with the confidence of the audience…..

In theory, anonymous sources are a last resort. Reporters are challenged to get people to speak on the record, but sometimes that’s just not possible. If the source remains unnamed, it must be a trade-off for candor and quality of information. Of course, there are times when information a source ardently believes to be true … turns out to be false. That’s why independent corroboration by a reporter is key. Bad sourcing or lax oversight can result in the equivalent of a journalistic drive-by shooting, aided and abetted by information cloaked in a shroud of anonymity.

It can be difficult for the audience to determine whether information attributed to an unnamed source is reliable, simple rumor or totally untrue. An outrageous example of bad reporting was coverage of the Duke lacrosse team and allegations against several of its players in 2006. News organizations around the country quoted ever-present unnamed sources, public officials, court records, and each other for months, opining in synchronicity on what turned out to be a lie…..

There’s no question that anonymous sources lead journalists to valuable information and that their motives can be pure — to right an injustice, to call the public’s attention to outrageous behavior, to correct dangerous situations, to shine a light on corruption. And there’s also no question that sometimes, if the source is to avoid retribution, the only way this can be done is anonymously.

But they can also be used to further personal agendas that harm others, benefit the source and/or mislead the audience — agents attempting to create a bidding war for their clients, players attempting to undermine their coaches, disgruntled or former employees seeking revenge, conferences attempting to poach new members, rivals looking to denigrate one another, etc.

I recommend reading the entire post, as Ohlmeyer discusses in detail the mechanics of using anonymous sources in trade rumor columns. As the trade deadline approaches and rumors begin to float, you will hear from many unnamed sources who believe the Yankees are willing to give up Jesus Montero, or value Romine more than Jesus, or have made Joba Chamberlain available and Andrew Brackman untouchable. But, as Ohlmeyer states, it is important to note that these sources always have a reason for revealing this information.

Agents and team executives like to muddy the waters through the press, so that each side seems like they have multiple suitors and can walk away from the table if they so choose. This leads to hundreds of false rumors that often go uncorroborated by members of the press and then are regurgitated for our consumption. Because the agenda of the source is unknown to us, the validity of the statements that they make is questionable, and should be taken as such. If something that such a source says seems extremely unlikely or too good to be true, it likely is. Do not believe everything you read, and be skeptical of that which you hear until a source puts their name on it. Otherwise, you are likely to be chasing false rumors until the trade deadline passes.

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Discussion: Journalism, Blogging, and Credibility

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 11 Responses »
Apr 162010


This morning, I was surprised to hear friend of the blog Craig Calcaterra on WFAN’s Boomer and Carton show. I’ll let Craig tell you more:

So yesterday Craig Carton and Boomer Esiason of 660 WFAN went crazy on me for calling Yankees fans “classless and ignorant” for booing Javy Vazquez on Wednesday. The audio of that is here, beginning at around the nine minute mark. It starts with Carton calling me a “jackass” and it goes downhill from there. Good times!

Always a fan of great theater, I decided to call in to the show this morning. I had no illusions that Carton would change his mind on the matter, and he most certainly did not. But rather than defend the booing on the merits — which I don’t think even he can — he decided to unload on me for being a blogger, not having a journalism background and all of that. Anyone who follows the media very much knows that’s the last refuge of someone with no argument, but there he went anyway. When I told him that Mike Lupica has a journalism background and he sucks he pulled a Francessa on me and hung up. Great theater — and basically what I expected — but telling all the same.

The bolded sentence touched off a discussion on Twitter (thanks to @jaydestro and @craigcalcaterra) about whether being a journalist with a degree gives you more credibility in terms of opining about sports than someone without such a degree. I think this is a very difficult question. On the one hand, these journalists put a lot of time and effort into their profession, and have training in terms of collecting information and then using that information to produce a completed product. On the other hand, they are not actually taught about baseball, such that there is no real reason to believe that they have any sort of innate grasp of the game or any particular insight. Should their credibility extend past reporting, where they obviously have the upper hand due to their training and access, into analysis and editorializing, where all they have are the same observations that any fan could formulate?

I think an argument can be made that a blogger like Craig might have more credibility than a journalist when it comes to opinion-based writing, simply because his opinions alone are what have made his writing career. He started blogging, and the meritocracy that is the internet deemed him worthy of reading, so much so that The Hardball Times and then NBC both brought him into the fold. However, building an online readership can also be done through unchecked rumor-mongering and sensationalism, so having an internet following does not necessarily mean that your analysis is worthy. Without editors and with a lowest common denominator audience always available, blogging can seem like the ungoverned Wild West at times. Furthermore, the lack of access does put bloggers behind reporters in regard to clubhouse matters and the like, such that there are topics where bloggers may be basing their opinions on incomplete information (Of course, if reporters do their jobs properly, outsiders should have all the information they need regardless of their level of access).

Being a blogger, I find this to be one of the more difficult questions to grapple with when writing. As a fan and reader, however, I find that I look to the bloggers for baseball opinions far more frequently than I look to the journalists. My feed reader is a meritocracy, and I simply find the writing by the bloggers that I follow to have more merit in terms of analysis and logical consistency than the output from the beat writers and columnists. In that way, the bloggers have simply earned more credibility in this arena in my eyes. However, I certainly understand the opinion of those who are likely to take the journalists more seriously.

Where do you stand on this issue?

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Pierce: Amphetamines Mean Old-Timers Were No Better

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 7:00 pm 9 Responses »
Apr 022010


I do not often agree with Charlie Pierce, but he is right on the money here:

However, this is the most interesting part of the piece.

“When I came to the big leagues in 1970 with the Big Red Machine, the trainer told me, ‘You need to take these vitamins,’ ’’ Carbo said.

OK, can we all stop talking about steroids now?

Seriously, illegal amphetamines were being handed out by untrained team staff, without the faintest notion of informed consent, to rookies on behalf of the clubs themselves. Major-league baseball was pushing speed, and lying to the people to whom it was pushing it. This is precisely the way the dealers in the early years got the crack epidemic up and running. No wonder Carbo got hooked.

(And don’t even start with the argument about what “performance-enhancing” really means. Giving you speed while telling you that it was vitamin pills, and doing so clearly in the hope of making you play better, means that the trainer — and through him, the club — is trying to enhance your performance. Period. Unless words mean nothing at all, the debate is all useless semantics, except that I suspect more of the guys who juiced in the 1990′s benefitted from better medical advice than did the guys in the 1970′s who were gobbling speed like it was Jujubes.)

What do we do now? Take these guys out of the Hall of Fame? Obliterate them from the record books? Show up at Old Timer’s Days and boo them? (“AND WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDREN???????????”) Treat, say, Mike Schmidt like Barry Bonds? These guys all took illegal drugs and did so to play better. Unless you define your morality by what sounds best during your spot on Around The Horn, there is no moral difference in the two cases worthy of discussion.

Hank Aaron admitted to trying greenies once, and I think it is fair to say that a large chunk of players were using them in the middle to late stages of the 20th century. As I have noted before, cheating and inequity have long been a part of the game, as well as sports in general. It is always necessary to judge players by the context within which they acted. Babe Ruth played in the age of segregation and did not have to face some of the better athletes of his day. Hank Aaron played in an era where taking greenies were the norm. We cannot look at their accomplishments with reverence while dismissing certain issues as products of their era without doing the same with the players of the steroid era. Ignoring things like greenies because they interfere with our romanticized version of the past while making villains of current players for making a similar moral choice is simply unfair.

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ESPN-NY Debuts With Uninspiring Lineup

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 1:00 pm 12 Responses »
Apr 022010


ESPN-NY went live this morning, and debuted the following roster of writers that will discuss the Yankees:

Andrew Marchand (General) – Marchand has been the managing editor for ESPN Radio 1050 AM since 2007 and has provided on-air reports for over three years. He also contributes extensively to his blog SportsClicker. Previously, Marchand spent ten years at the New York Post covering TV sports and as the Mets beat writer for two years. He will cover all NY area sports on ESPNNewYork.com.
Ian O’Connor (Columnist) – O’Connor is a former a columnist with The Record of New Jersey and New York Daily News and has previously written for The New York Times and The Star-Ledger. He has also been a frequent contributor and blogger for ESPN Radio 1050 AM for the past three years. O’Connor is a New York Times best-selling author for his book titled Arnie & Jack: Palmer, Nicklaus and Golf’s Greatest History.
Wally Matthews (Yankees) – Matthews has covered New York sports since 1983 as a reporter, columnist, radio host and TV commentator. He joins ESPNNewYork.com to cover the Yankees, which he’s done since the days of Stump Merrill, having worked for Newsday, the New York Post, the New York Sun and ESPN Radio 1050 AM.

As @bencs94 noted yesterday on Twitter, all of these writers have existing ties to ESPN 1050 that make them a natural fit for this sort of site. The issue is that none of them consistently produce high-quality content that will draw readers from the local media entities. O’Connor writes well, but as we have noted before, he lacks journalistic ethics and tends towards sensationalism rather than reasoned analysis. Marchand is simply an adequate reporter, and Matthews is a train wreck in every sense of the word, for whom hyperbole and contrarianism are legitimate writing tools. A team of writers such as Joel Sherman (best news-breaker in NY), Ken Davidoff (excellent writing skills and always fair and balanced), and Marc Carig (strong reporter who understand newer forms of analysis) would have been vastly superior to this group, and would have made ESPN-NY a daily destination for many Yankees fans. Instead, we get a group of columnists constantly looking for an athlete or executive to rip, a panic to stir, or a fanbase to anger. That sort of sensationalism tends to drive traffic, and makes ESPN’s choices perfectly understandable. ESPN had a chance to build something special, and instead chose to bring in some easy clicks. It’s unsurprising, but still sad to see.

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Discussion: What Do You Expect From Baseball Writers On Twitter?

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 6:12 pm 8 Responses »
Mar 222010


Twitter has entirely changed how baseball reporters and writers deal with the information that they collect and how they interact with their readership. Ken Rosenthal chimed in on this topic last night (h/t @crashburnalley):

Early in my career, I would lose sleep if I reported something inaccurately, even worry about losing my job. The standards now are much lower; too often, the emphasis is on being first rather than factual. Many stories lack nuance and context, particularly when reported in 140-character tweets.

I’m not preaching from any mountaintop here — I pride myself on accuracy, but occasionally make mistakes, too. It is the nature of the business now. It is not a step forward. And from the perspective of an executive such as Williams, it is just one more hassle.

Rosenthal is right, as the nature of Twitter sheds details from stories and often leads to misinterpretations by readers and fans. Furthermore, the offhand nature of Twitter tends to make it impossible for readers to distinguish whether a tweet is the writer’s opinion or is based on actual reporting. We had one example last night from Jon Heyman, as Steve clarified this morning. Heyman was just stating an opinion about Joba Chamberlain, but a number of people ran with the story as if he was reporting it. Similarly, Mark Feinsand sent out the following tweet this afternoon:

Yankees postgame notes: M. Rivera has hamstring injury; J. Vazquez among latest round of roster cuts.

The actual notes referred to Mike Rivera and Jorge Vazquez, but some believed that Mariano Rivera was hurt and a mini-panic started. When Feinsand revealed that he was just kidding around, most shrugged it off and laughed, while others were fairly upset (others ran and wrote a blog post). This lead me to think about these reporters and their responsibilities when using Twitter.

Being that people follow them due to their status as baseball writers, do they have a responsibility to maintain similar journalistic standards to those they are expected to have on their blogs and in their papers? Should the writer assume that everything he says about the team will be taken as an act of reporting unless otherwise denoted? Or is it the responsibility of the reader to filter the information and assume that Twitter reporting is less likely to be precise or accurate?

I lean towards it being the responsibility of the writer to contextualize all of his team-related tweets. A simple IMO (in my opinion) can delineate between reporting and analysis or opinion, and avoiding misleading data can be done with just a little bit of diligence. However, being that reporters are still figuring out the medium, I think that readers need to be cognizant of the fact that the standards on Twitter are lower at this point, and use the information accordingly.

How do you feel about this issue?

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Journalistic Integrity In The Internet Age

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 11:00 am 6 Responses »
Mar 122010


Dan Le Betard wrote a fascinating column last week about the role of the media in the internet age, and I wanted to highlight some of his thoughts:

“Evolution” and “progress” are not always synonyms. The electric toothbrush is an example of that. So, too, our ability to now get dinner at the gas station. But because survival is the strongest instinct, in humans and in business, sports journalism is being forced to evolve into selling its principles and fairness (its soul, in other words) in exchange for clicks and cash, a trafficking not that far removed from porn.

(Porn is more honorable, actually. At least there, the participants agree to the transaction and get paid.)

It is either that or lose money and ratings and eyeballs to people who don’t make any kind of moral stand. The mainstream media might have wanted to stay out of the TMZ-ization of the Tiger Woods story on principle, but it literally couldn’t afford to do so because viewers were going to go find it somewhere. Show me the restaurant that tells you what you should be eating, instead of giving you what you want to consume, and I’ll show you an empty restaurant……

There’s also an interesting generation gap growing between old media, which is either aging or dying, and new media, which gets stronger by the day. Today’s kids — and kids are what make everything popular — don’t seem to be as judgmental as their parents. They want to see Portland center Greg Oden naked and the drunk photos of Texas center fielder Josh Hamilton just for the voyeuristic pleasure in it, not necessarily to judge it. And old media can’t keep ignoring those kind of desires, not if it wants to survive. It is hard not to notice that newspapers keep going out of business while TMZ Sports is scheduled to open this year.

While I do agree with the general sentiment of Dan’s column, that sports media is losing integrity as it embraces the voyeuristic tendencies of the Hollywood media, I do want to quibble with the bolded portion. Sports media is not being forced to sell its soul for clicks, it is choosing to do so. Analogizing to newspapers, the New York Post, the New York Times, and the National Enquirer have been sold at the same newsstands for many years. There is always a niche available for responsible, reasoned journalism, as there will always be an audience of fans that are not interested in voyeuristic stories that have little to do with the events on the field. Now, that niche may be less lucrative than the less principled route, but that does not change the fact that there is a choice being made every time a media outlet digs into Tiger Woods’ past.

I understand that as businesses, these outlets need to make decisions that will maximize revenues, and therefore do not begrudge them for moving away from the moralistic ideals that Le Betard pines for. However, for the writers, I think their choice remains obvious. If you got into journalism in order to report and comment on the news in a principled and moral fashion, and you feel that your outlet is forcing you to compromise those ideals, you can take the money or find a new employer. It is a simple decision, and I believe that both choices are equally valid. I have no problem with a reporter sacrificing his own ideals in order to support his family, and I have great respect for those who refuse to budge on what they believe in. But it is important to note, once you cross the line that Le Betard notes and sell your principles for clicks, you have lost some of your integrity.

Ultimately, journalistic integrity is the underpinning of a great sports writer or media outlet. In a climate where every story is picked apart within minutes, those who refrain from crossing those voyeuristic lines and do not seem to be trolling for clicks garner the most respect. Sites like Fire Joe Morgan sprung up because of the shift that Le Betard discusses, as writers began to make intentionally ridiculous statements in order to drive pageviews (of course, there are also those that are simply idiots). And yet, despite the constant fisking of journalism that lacks integrity, the media psyche continues to shift in the wrong direction.

A writer such as Ian O’Connor, who had an embarrassing column simply removed from the internet and continues to take shots at athletes for personal reasons (see recent A-Rod columns), was rewarded with a plum job at ESPN NY likely due to his ability to incite anger and drive page views. In the battle between dollars and integrity, the money is winning comfortably. And unless media outlets suddenly become uncomfortable with the sacrifices that they are making or the zeitgeist among fans shifts away from the more abhorrent voyeuristic elements of reporting, this is unlikely to change any time soon. Slowly, bit by bit, journalistic integrity in sports media is suffering an agonizing death, and we are largely powerless to stop it.

Edit: Just as an illustration of my point, see Bill Conlin’s response to the fact that he discussed the greatest infields of all time and left out the Reds of the 70’s:

“I covered Rose, Morgan and Perez when they were with the Phillies, know them well, and don’t really care what you post on your blog. I write a commentary column and it attracted an enormous response. That’s the coin of my realm and why I’m still drawing a paycheck 11 years past age 65. Thanks for helping to keep me in the game.”

Mr. Conlin, the job of a journalist is not to create controversy, it is to report and discuss the news. What you are doing makes you no better, and likely worse, than the bloggers that you so loathe.

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An overreaction to Johnson's "injury"

Posted by Chris H. at 3:05 pm 5 Responses »
Mar 052010

Via John Harper of the Daily News:

Somewhere, Brian Cashman must have cringed when he heard the news. Not that Nick Johnson getting scratched from a spring training game is some catastrophe, but for the Yankee GM there is no escaping the tie-in between Johnson and Johnny Damon…

As you all know by now, Johnson missed yesterday’s game with a stiff lower back, and he was also held out of today’s game, as well, against Tampa Bay. However, his back is reportedly feeling better after having performed a series of exercises earlier in the day, though no set return date has been ironed out for the oft-injured Johnson.

Turning to Harper’s NJ piece, he’s overreacting, right? I know that Johnson’s injury history is enough to make even the slightest bruise newsworthy, but, even so, the response seems frenzied. I mean, bringing up Damon? Really?

What do you think? Are such reactions warranted?

Photo by Getty Images

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Fans, Media and Racism Without Racists

Posted by Moshe Mandel at 7:00 pm 95 Responses »
Feb 102010

This is an extremely touchy subject that I have held off on posting about for a while due to its incredibly volatile and incendiary nature. That said, I think the time is ripe for some brief thoughts on the issue, and then I hope you will join me in a reasoned discussion in the comments.

In 2008, Nicholas Kristoff wrote an op-ed article in the Times about the possibility that Barack Obama was facing racism from non-racists. He explained:

John Dovidio, a psychologist at Yale University who has conducted this study over many years, noted that conscious prejudice as measured in surveys has declined over time. But unconscious discrimination — what psychologists call aversive racism — has stayed fairly constant……

Faced with a complex decision, he said, aversive racists feel doubts about a black person that they don’t feel about an identical white. “These doubts tend to be attributed not to the person’s race — because that would be racism — but deflected to other areas that can be talked about, such as lack of experience,” he added.

To state it simply, many of us believe ourselves to be non-racists, but still harbor some unconscious stereotypes and aversions that we are hardwired for culturally. So what does this have to do with sports? I believe that this sort of “racism without racists” creeps up from time to time in discussions and judgements about athletes.

Before I bring an example and expand this discussion, I want to make something very clear. I AM NOT ACCUSING ANYONE OF BEING A RACIST. On the contrary, I am suggesting that as human beings, we have absorbed some of the cultural biases that surround us, and therefore make unconscious judgements and decisions that would be at least slightly racist were they made knowingly. Furthermore, although the op-ed was in reference to President Obama, please leave politics out of your comments. This is a discussion about “racism without racists” in sports.

This topic has been rolling around my head since I saw the following quotes in a Jayson Stark article. Stark asked a number of talent evaluators to choose between Felix Hernandez and Justin Verlander, and all chose Hernandez. However, this comment by one of the evaluators caught my eye:

“Now we’ll see what the contracts do to both guys. It won’t faze Verlander, but I guess it’s possible Felix could get a little complacent. His makeup doesn’t suggest it, but you never know.

When I posted this comment on Twitter, a number of followers had the same reaction that I did. Namely, if it is not in the character of either player to be fazed by his new deal, why would Felix be the one to be singled out as a slight possibility to become complacent? To me, this hinted at the issue discussed in the op-ed linked above. Verlander is white, while Felix is not, and the speaker unconsciously attributed complacency to the non-white.

Chris briefly touched upon this dichotomy earlier in the week, when discussing Robbie Cano’s lack of speed. he noted that Joe Buck referred to him as a burner a number of times during the World Series, and suggested the following:

In addition, though I am hesitant to say this in fear of a backlash, there are longstanding ethnic and racial stereotypes which distinguish minorities as “fast runners,” so I wonder if this is also implicitly at play with guys like Robinson Cano and Orlando Hudson. This is a difficult issue to discuss, but, as many academics have noted, it is a characterization that exists.

I think Chris was spot on with his analysis here. Cano, in particular, seems to be a magnet for this sort of rhetoric. In fact, as I was writing this post, Bob Klapisch posted an article in which he suggested Dustin Pedroia would look good in pinstripes, for the following reasons:

Yes, we know the Yankees have the more talented second baseman in Robinson Cano. The Bronx incumbent is smooth, super-cool and has a hitting DNA to die for. But Pedroia plays harder and has a greater emotional investment in the day-to-day outcome of his team. In other words, he cares more than Cano.

There is absolutely no way for Klapisch to know which of the two cares more. All I know is that Robinson Cano is always working on his craft, tinkering with his swing all offseason. When he struggled in 2008, he spent his entire All Star break attempting to fix his swing. Is it possible that he occasionally loses focus on the field? Sure, and people should be quick to point it out when it happens. But to state unequivocally that he cares less than Pedroia is irresponsible, and is, in my opinion, an embodiment of the “racism without racists” mindset.

Baseball fans are commonly exposed to this sort of dichotomy, in which white players are often presented as gritty and do everything they can to maximize their talents, while minority players are “athletic” and “smooth,” and “make it look easy out there.” The successes of white players are attributed to effort, while the successes of non-white players are explained by inherent ability. Failures by minorities players are often explained by pointing to a lack of effort. Failures by white players have a way of occasionally being rationalized away or even forgotten. Paul O’Neill failed to run out two balls in Game 3 of the 1999 World Series. I am a huge O’Neill fan, and I had no idea about this story until recently. It did absolutely nothing to diminish O’Neill’s reputation, and he never got dubbed lazy or inattentive. I wonder whether a player from a minority group would have emerged equally unscathed.

Some will say that I am making mountains out of molehills, and that in most ways, sports have become post-racial. I have a hard time accepting that viewpoint. As I have noted elsewhere, there were racial conflagrations in American cities in the 90’s. Race is still a touchy subject, and one that still touches many issues and spheres of life. Just because there is not overt racism in the judgment of ballplayers does not mean that long standing beliefs colored by racial undertones have not seeped into those judgments.

I stated earlier that I did not intend to call the writers and baseball men referenced above racists, and I want to reiterate that point here. Those quoted above are not “bad” people, nor should they be censured for the things they wrote or said. Rather, I am simply pointing out that we are all a product of the society in which we were cultivated, and our society is not yet finished with issues of race. We have thankfully moved from an era where overt racism in sports is the norm to one where it is exceedingly rare. But latent racism still exists in the sports world, and we do ourselves a disservice by ignoring it or acting like it is not an issue. Only by candidly discussing it can we hope to make it a thing of the past.

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