I’m not sure which is more shocking — the thorough thumping Sports On My Mind’s D.K. Wilson delivered to ESPN Radio’s Mike Greenberg, or the fact Mike Golic comes off as the more thoughtful of the pair.
Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic entered into a In a discussion Monday about œthe steroid era and how so many baseball writers want to selectively eliminate certain players they arbitrarily feel took steroids or performance-enhancing drugs.
Golic rightly said that if voters want to keep suspected PED users out of the game or create a special wing for players who are suspected of using PEDs, they need or needed to do the same for players who used or were suspected of using amphetamines, players who corked bats, and scuffed baseballs. But the big one, Golic intimated, is racism. The former NFL players said that if people think using amphetamines did not greatly aid players they are fooling themselves. He also said that racism absolutely needs to be addressed by baseball writers; that because of racism in MLB we will never truly know how good any of the players from the œSegregation Era were.
Mike Greenberg then dismissed Golic™s statements about racism in total by saying baseball has created a special wing for the Black players who were active during the Segregation Era. From that moment on Greenberg never mentioned racism as one of baseball™s more sordid œeras.
That the separate wing is for those men who were forced to play in a separate league – Negro Leagues – from the majors just to make a living playing the game is an act so egregious that the Baseball Hall of Fame should be boycotted daily.
The simple fact is that the special wing should be for the White players who compiled their statistics and played their careers separate from Black players, not the other way around. Think about it.
Does any baseball writer, any fan, or Greenberg want there to be a special wing for the so-called victims who would be the players who made it to the Hall but did not use PEDs? Obviously not.
So why is there a special wing for the victims of racism in baseball? Because baseball, like the rest of our society, like Greenberg specifically, is inherently racist.
I’m not sure if dwil has a handle on the definition of inherent, but that’s being picky. There’s a shitload of middle ground to take into account, and a shitload of reasons not to sweat the HoF or Greenburg.
You are inherently a douchebag.
Er, there is not a separate wing for African American players at the BHOF. They are honored with a plaque with everyone else in the main hall. The so-called “separate wing” was designed to honor Negro League players, not to segregate them from white HOFers. There are separate wings to honor baseball writers and for women who played in their own version of baseball during WWII. Guess that makes the HOF sexist and anti-media, too, based on your logic.
well, there’s a separate wing for Negro League players, who as Wilson correctly points out, were the victims of segregation, not the beneficiaries. Yet, they are accorded (in his eyes, anyway), second class status.
It’s not my logic, Tom. It’s D.K.’s. However, I do think you could make a case — depending on your point of view — the Hall is sexist for separating the women players, or perhaps that you’re diminishing the achievements of the Negro League stars by comparing them to …uh, women.
I think we can probably agree that baseball writers are not baseball players.
Gosh, you would think I made the statement and not Greenberg….. And, if you don’t get it, blaming the victim is a classic and destructive form of racist behavior, hence the importance of separating Negro League players from MLB at-large, while even thinking about making a special wing for PED users.
Again, w/ the PED users, the rest of the members of the Hall are the victims, and the PED users are an unwanted entity. Separating Negro Leaguers in any form or fashion then silently says the same thing as creating a special wing separating PED users….
It really is not rocket science to understand the linear logic of the statements and the results of the actions. And it should not be difficult to understand the negative effects that type of separation has on the group deemed the “Other.”… at least, for your sakes, I hope it is not difficult.
There is no separate wing for Nego League players at all. Bowie Kuhn suggested it, and it was deemed idiotic by all involved. The Negro League players’ plaques are right next to their white contemporaries.
my apologies to the Hall and it’s staff if you are indeed correct. I’ve only visited the facility once and am sad to say I didn’t take note of this, and as such, am not personally qualified to comment. However, it is telling that on the Hall’s own website, Hall Of Famers are separated by the following categories :
Player
Umpire
Negro Leaguer
Executive / Pioneer
“However, it is telling that on the Hall’s own website, Hall Of Famers are separated by the following categories :
Player
Umpire
Negro Leaguer
Executive / Pioneer”
Well, all the Negro Leaguers and MLBers are included in that first category.
And later, they’re also capable of being sorted by position, year of induction, dead or living, and each includes NLers and MLBers side by side. It seems those separations are to help people find the information they’re looking for more quickly (say a guy researching the Negro League Hall of Famers), rather than to create distinctions within the Hall.
But I’m sure poster No. 5 will tell me that’s my naivete talking.
1. There is no seperate wing for Negro League Hall of Famers….they are in the same Hall of Fame as Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb and Nolan Ryan.
2. Bowie Kuhn wanted the Negro Leaguers in the Hall of Fame from the beginning. He was met with opposition by Ford Frick and other old guys, including the Hall of Fame Prez. This was back in 1969-70. Kuhn proposed the seperate wing as a compromise. That didn’t fly either. Finally, after pressure from influential writers lke Dick Young…Satchell Paige and others were given full status.