Newsday’s Neil Best is the lucky recipient of an HBO screener, and once again, we’re left in pure awe at the quote machine that is the Tigers’ Gary Sheffield.
Gary Sheffield (above, left) asserts black and white players are treated differently under Yankees manager Joe Torre, says Derek Jeter “ain’t all the way black,” and denies he ever has used steroids because “steroids is something you shoot in your butt” in an eye-opening interview with Andrea Kremer for the next edition of HBO’s “Real Sports,” debuting at 10 p.m. Tuesday night.
In the middle of the interview, Kremer reports that Sheffield believes white and black players are coached differently, then asks him to name teams on which they are not coached the same. He immediately answers: “The Yankees.”
How so? “I know when I was there the couple of blacks that were there, every one of them had an issue with the organization,” he says. Kremer asks him whether by “organization,” he means George Steinbrenner, Brian Cashman or Joe Torre.
“They had an issue with Joe Torre,” Sheffield says. “They weren’t treated like everybody else. I got called out in a couple of meetings that I thought were unfair.”
Kremer presses for details and he says, “He had a message to get across to the whole team, so he used me to get the message across.”
And he never did that with white players? “No . . . I’d see a lot of white players get called in the office and treated like a man. That’s the difference.”
Kremer points out that the Yankees’ most prominent player is black. “Who?” Sheffield says. Derek Jeter. “Derek Jeter is black and white.” Kremer then confirms that Jeter is half black and half white. “Exactly,” Sheffield responds.
Kremer asks what the significance of that is. “There’s really no significance. You just ain’t all the way black,” he says.
Later, Kremer asks Sheffield about his alleged steroid use, including his grand jury testimony that he used steroid cream on his legs and liquid (or “clear”) under his tongue.
He says he started using those products when Barry Bonds, his workout partner at the time, saw his stash of vitamins and yelled, “What are you taking that stuff for? It’s stupid.”
So he got the other substances from BALCO, not knowing they were in effect steroids. In fact, he still denies every taking steroids, even though he was told the clear was for “muscle recovery, like when you lift weights you can recover.”
He said, “In a million years, I don’t care what anybody says, steroids is something you shoot in your butt. I do know that . . . The bottom line is steroids is something you stick in your butt “- period.”
Sheffield wonders why “if I took what Barry Bonds took, why don’t I look like him?”
Gary Sheffield, arbiter of racial purity. Excellent.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but Jeter has never hidden fact that he’s of mixed heritage, has he? So, it’s not like Sheff is divulging any confidential info…
If these guys could just hear themselves when they speak, you wonder if they’d turn on that filter between the brain and mouth.
No, of course not. When FOX carries a Yankees home game, there’s like an 85 percent that the broadcast includes a shot of Jeter’s folks in the crowd, reveling in their interracial-ness. After all, it was that facet of their relationship that guaranteed that their son would one day be safe from getting yelled at by Joe Torre.
Bruce, the thing that is odd that Sheffield has done — to me, anyway — is putting himself in a position where he gets to decide who is really “black” or not. Whatever that means.
RE: deciding who’s ethnic enough and who’s not, white people do that all the time. I won’t go into details because it’ll just piss me the hell off, but it happens all the time. Sheffield is only as big an imbecile as any white person who does the same, no more and no less. The real racial issue here is that we have a national problem that isn’t really solveable.
But….wait. The best part is that now Lil Mustache is claiming that they edited the clip to make him look like he was bashing Jeter. With guys like this, you can’t win.
Gary Sheffield is an angry man, no two ways about it. If it’s not allegations of racism, it’s going to be something else. There’s a reason he’s playing for his seventh MLB team.
I remember back in his Brewer days when Sheff was thought of as Doc Gooden’s troubled nephew. Seems like he’s trying to reclaim that distinction in the family….