You can take the boy out of the ghetto, but…
Writing by treason on Sunday, 22 of July , 2007 at 2:43 pm
“Honor is the most expensive virtue. None of life’s pleasures are worth anything without honor.”
– Corporal Mark Finelli, who became a Marine after surviving the collapse of the World Trade Center
In today’s Parade, there’s an article about the new demographics of Major League Baseball. Currently, there are 246 players who were born outside the United States. There are 208 players who were born in Latin America or the Caribbean — mostly Dominicans, Venezuelans, and Puerto Ricans. There are 18 players who were born in Asia. In 2006, there were 100 African-American players. That is only 8.4% of all players, down from 19% in 1994. The MLB says that much of this decline can be explained by the fact that boys just prefer to play basketball and football now. Gary Sheffield says there are other reasons. It’s preference, all right, but it’s the MLB’s preference to hire Latino players from outside the U.S. over black players from America’s inner cities because it’s easier “to control them.”
Hmmm. Perhaps the NFL and NBA should start recruiting more of these “controllable” types. Do you know how many NFL players have been arrested this year? I won’t even mention the one who was just indicted for crimes against canines – the one who plays for, as T calls them, the Atlanta Foul Cons.
I’m reminded of Don Mattingly, T’s favorite Yankee, and how he was ordered by management to trim his hair. It seems so quaint now, but back then it was quite the controversy. Mattingly refused to comply and was dropped, albeit briefly, from the lineup. Even today George Steinbrenner will not tolerate his players wearing long hair or beards. There is a particular code for players and they must “understand what it is to be a Yankee.” Do not disrespect those pinstripes, worn by the likes of Lou Gehrig, and show your Yankee pride. Get thee to a barber!
I’ve heard rumors that the Cubs had a similar rule, a dress code. Something like, if you’re on the road with the team, when you leave the clubhouse and get on that bus, you represent the team of Tinker, Evers and Chance, of Banks, Williams, and Santo, of Sandberg, Dawson, and Grace – as well as the great city of Chicago — so you’d best be looking your best.
Watching the Cubs get on board the team bus outside Candlestick Park, I suspected this story might have been true. They all looked like they were headed to a wedding. But back then there were certain standards. Some argued that some of these seemed unreasonable, but I always supported the decisions demanding certain behavior from the players.
The horror, for me, started with the appearance of those heavy gold figaro chains that looked more and more like canine choke collars. Then came the enormous diamond studs. The bling, the long hair (frankly, few things look dumber than a baseball player with long hair), the black crap under Will Clark’s eyes… I don’t care if there was a valid reason for the schmear – it was, to me, a violation of baseball decorum. It’s when players stopped being part of a team and became overpaid, obnoxious individuals.
I don’t watch football or basketball, and after the fisticuff in the Cubs dugout I stopped watching baseball this season. I’ve written here many times about what made me a baseball fan and what kept me a fan even after all the disappointments and disgraces. For instance, when I was nine and my sister had brought me to Uptown Federal Bank to stand in line with what seemed like a million other Cubs fans to meet Ernie Banks and Randy Hundley. It was 1969 and the line stretched for blocks. Hours had passed, it was getting late, and I was worried.
“There’s no way they’ll stay. We’ll never get up there in time. We’ll never meet them. We’ll never get to tell them how much we appreciate what they’ve done.”
My sister was worried about the time, too.
“You realize, of course, it’s going to get dark soon and we’re going to be killed in this neighborhood, don’t you?”
Yet Banks and Hundley stayed until every last fan had passed through the bank and had shaken their hands. Quite a different experience from the one T had with his brother at the Oakland Coliseum several years later. T’s brother worshipped a particular player and, like dozens of other young men, called out to him from the crowd. He didn’t stop to acknowledge the kids who had lined up to see him; instead, he walked past them as they called out “Tony! Tony!,” and said only this:
“That’s my name — don’t wear it out.”
And so, much like the name of that Atlanta Foul Con, it’s one simply not worth mentioning here.
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