Crouch’s former club, Queens Park Rangers remain in serious danger of relegation following Saturday’s 2-1 loss to promotion hopefuls West Brom. It was a brutal afternoon for Stupor Hoops striker Paul Furlong, who squandered a solid scoring chance in the first half, then had his 66th minute spot kick save by Albion’s Dean Kiely.
The Observer’s Paul Wilson writes that Sir Alex Ferguson actually expects anyone to believe the floptastic Cristiano Ronaldo is a role model for children.
“The Manchester United manager believes the FA should have taken action over George Boateng’s thinly veiled threat to Cristiano Ronaldo, when the Middlesbrough captain warned the Manchester United player last month to cut out the show-boating or expect to be seriously hurt by a frustrated opponent.
‘I was surprised the FA did nothing about the Boateng thing – if one of our players had said something like that we would have been up before them right away,’ Ferguson said. ‘We are not going to complain; as a club we don’t do that and I don’t think we should. Uefa are investigating the Belgian goalkeeper [Stijn Stijnen of Lille], quite rightly, for saying the same thing, but the FA have done nothing about Boateng and I am surprised.”
When it announced the first annual Civil Rights Game between the Cardinals and Cleveland Indians less than four months ago, Major League Baseball envisioned this weekend as a commemoration of the civil rights movement and baseball’s role in enacting social change.
Cardinals outfielder Preston Wilson, meanwhile, notices that he is part of another change: the game’s ever-diminishing minority of African-American players.
The veteran Wilson is the only African-American player on the Cardinals’ projected opening day roster. He has witnessed the steady ebb of black athletes from the game for two decades.
“I think the perception is if there’s a dark-skinned Latin guy out there, then he’s black,” Wilson said before Friday’s game against the Memphis Redbirds. “A lot of people don’t differentiate. But it’s not the case. There are a lot of issues involved.”
While Major League Baseball has made recent strides in elevating the number of minorities in its front offices and the central office, it has fought a losing battle against the well-known attrition of black athletes. Of players on major league rosters last season, only 8.7 percent were African-American.
Wilson sees few black role players in today’s game. Citing all-time pinch hit leader Lenny Harris (above) as an exception, Wilson said, “There are no mediocre guys who are black who are the 25th man on their roster. It just doesn’t happen. We don’t get those jobs. You can say it sounds whatever. But it’s true. Name one.”
