Whose Offense Is In Front of the Line?

On Monday, the Baltimore Orioles played the first game of a four game series at Fenway Park, the home of the Boston Red Sox.  There were a number of errors committed, four by the Red Sox and one by someone in the stands.

The one in the stands was where the ticket-holder threw a bag of peanuts at the Oriole outfielder Adam Jones, and where that person, or another, allegedly used racial epithets at the outfielder, who is black.  There appear to have been a number of people involved in one way or another, as a few dozen appear to have been thrown out of the stands for whatever reason in the aftermath.

I, of course, couldn't see it, because Major League Baseball thinks that the seven-hour drive to Camden Yards makes my zip code in the Carolinas "local" to Baltimore, so they blacked out the game in my home, even though I could not have attended because the game was in Boston.  Thanks for that.

The Red Sox organization was quick to show their anti-racism bona fides, as the public quote from the team from their president, Sam Kennedy, would suggest:

“The Red Sox want to publicly apologize to Adam Jones and the entire Orioles organization for what occurred at Fenway Park Monday night. No player should have an object thrown at him on the playing field, nor be subjected to any kind of racism at Fenway Park.  The Red Sox have zero tolerance for such inexcusable behavior, and our entire organization and our fans are sickened by the conduct of an ignorant few.”

Yeah, that ought to show 'em.  They must be "ignorant", possibly as a result of being educated in the schools of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, where they should have learned that you can call anybody anything at any time, but for God's sake (for those who believe in God), don't utter a racial slur.  Perhaps they were out of school that day.

Perhaps they missed the times that batteries, peanuts, hotdogs with mustard and plastic bottles were thrown at players of all races in the past because, you know, they wore the other team's uniform.  That never seemed to draw a team statement.  Or when fans taunted players because they were tall, or short, or had big ears, or just, you know, wore the other team's uniform.  That was OK, silence from the team president.

So this piece isn't about baseball, of course, but about slurs.  I'm reading perhaps the eighth biography of Ted Williams that I've owned, each better than the last.  This one is by Ben Bradlee, and includes some excellent research into his background and relationships with his parents and family.

Ted Williams was frequently booed in his home stadium, typically following inflammatory articles in one or more of the many newspapers competing for circulation eyeballs in Boston of the '40s and '50s.  He often reported some miserable things being yelled at him there, although he was actually quite popular with the fans.

I don't believe there was a statement from the team begging the fans in the stadium to be nicer to Mr. Williams and stop yelling profanity at him.  Yet now, it appears that the organization had to trip over itself to make a statement about how bad it was to yell racial sentiments at players, even though they play for the other team.

Jones himself decided to make a statement, which I suppose is his right.  Except for one bizarre word use, it was pretty much what you would have expected if a mic were shoved in your face.  He said,
“It’s unfortunate that people need to resort to those type of epitaphs [sic] to degrade another human being. I’m out there trying to make a living for myself and my family. The best thing about myself is that I know how to move on and still play the game hard and let people be who they are and let them show their true colors.”

Here's what I get out of it.  I don't swear, so I can't write any of the things I've heard at a major league game.  I've sung the National Anthem at games at both of those teams' parks, and I rather hope that none of those words was ever directed at me -- possibly because the anthem is usually sung before beer consumption can accumulate in any fan's system, to the point of affecting their decisions.

But what I've heard (and seen) in a stadium on occasion has been hideous and vulgar, generally relating to the exploits of the yelling individual with the mother or sister of the player, or the size of certain body parts, or suggestions on their use.  Yet apparently it is OK, since I've never heard a public statement from a team instructing its ticket-buyers to refrain from such shouting.

But race, well, that's a third rail right there.  It's OK to needle the other team's third-baseman about his capacity to produce children, but never, ever shout a word about what race he is.  And don't throw peanuts.  First, they're about $5 plus a tip at Fenway, and they weren't bad last time I was there.  But there is a racial-primate inference, there, and you're not supposed to do that.

Unless you are Howard Cosell, who did the same thing a few times on national TV and got off scot-free*.

I have to admit, I don't get it.  Do you imagine that if a fan were to scream at an outfielder who was from, say, Alabama, and call him a "^&*$%^ redneck", that the Red Sox would have put out a statement including a phrase like "No player should have an object thrown at him on the playing field, nor be subjected to any kind of presumption of ignorance or neck color based on the state of his birth, at Fenway Park"?

Nope, me either.  People can be jerks, and they can be bigger jerks when lubricated by bottles of suds.  I've been called a lot of things in my life, many relating to my relatively diminutive stature (I was 5.6" once, but probably don't quite reach that exalted height now).  I was born that way, of course, same as people of other races are born that way.  Long, long ago I decided that it didn't matter, and sure enough, I found a career -- several, in fact -- and a wonderful lady to spend my life with (who used to be a cheerleader, ha, ha), and I didn't grow past the height I was at 18.

The less I cared about it, the more I could laugh at the shouts of "Stand up, Bob", and the easier that life became.  I think it is about time that instead of trying to regulate the shouts of over-beery fans at baseball games, we start teaching kids at a very young age how to laugh at -- and with -- such things and defuse the situation.  Adam Jones, you know, could have turned back to the fan, smiled and waved and laughed with him.

Race is no different, and I truly don't believe it should be held out as the third rail it has become.  Epithets are epithets (or, I guess, "epitaphs"), and they're all the same.

At least that's the case in my book.
______________________

* Well, Cosell didn't exactly get off scot-free, although he wasn't punished.  At a Friars' Club roast of Joe Namath, Cosell was a guest.  Buddy Hackett, the emcee, introduced him this way: "There have always been mixed emotions about Howard Cosell.  Some people hate him like poison!!  Other people just hate him regular."
______________________

Copyright 2017 by Robert Sutton
Like what you read here?  There's a new post from Bob at www.uberthoughtsUSA.com at 10am Eastern time, every weekday, giving new meaning to "prolific essayist."  Appearance, advertising, sponsorship and interview inquiries cheerfully welcomed at bsutton@alum.mit.edu or on Twitter at @rmosutton.