I usually spend a great deal of time focusing on business and media issues and how, together, they negatively impact African-American achievements and perceptions.
As I thought about all of that over the past week, I couldn’t escape feeling that the most visible, current example of that process at work is the way in which Major League Baseball, a $5.2 billion annual business, is working together with mainstream media to denigrate and vilify Barry Bonds, who is, arguably, the best professional baseball player of all time.
With the ugly, transparent campaign to make Barry Bonds the "poster child" for the entire 30-year history of steroid use in baseball, media, with the full support of Baseball’s leaders, have successfully created a wholly inaccurate image of Barry Bonds as a one-dimensional, drug-enhanced home run hitter.
This is, at worse case, racist and, certainly, disingenuous for a sport whose own players have estimated that steroid abuse has been “rampant” since the 70’s, with their estimates ranging from 50 to 85 percent player involvement, at one time. There was also substantial evidence, in Baseball’s own findings, in 2005, that the overwhelming concentration of steroid abuse was found among pitchers, not outfielders. Yet the image of steroid abuse in baseball is the “sullen,” black outfielder, specifically Bonds, who, by the way, has never failed a test for performance enhancing drugs. In the process, of “trashing” Mr. Bonds, “Baseball” and its writers and broadcasters have been careful to ignore some of Bonds' most dramatic, statistical achievements.
For example, most fans aren’t aware that Bonds:
- Ranks “third all-time” in runs scored (2203), just 42 behind the “great” Ty Cobb and 92 behind Ricky Henderson, a perennial lead-off batter.
- Ranks “fourth all-time” in RBIs (1978), behind only Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig; ahead of Cobb, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, Ted Williams, Honus Wagner, Cal Ripken, Jr., etal.
- Ranks “fifth all-time” in on-base percentage (.444), substantially ahead of Mickey Mantle, Musial, Jimmie Foxx and Rogers Hornsby.
- Ranks “fifth all-time” in slugging percentage (.607), ahead of the “Yankee Clipper” Joe DiMaggio, Hornsby, Frank Thomas, Musial and everybody else who ever played baseball, other than the top four, legendary players, each of whom is already a “Hall of Famer.”
- Won eight Gold Glove Awards, (How does alleged steroid use facilitate that?).
- In 2003, became the first professional baseball player in history to hit 500 home runs and steal 500 bases.
- Won seven National League MVP Awards, far and away more MVP awards than any other player in baseball history; tied for second behind Bonds, at three awards, are Yogi Berra, Roy Campanella, Joe DiMaggio, Jimmie Foxx, Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial and Mike Schmidt.
Raise your hand and go to the head of the class if you already knew of these achievements by the “best baseball player in history.” If you knew it, you learned it, as I did, by delving into baseball’s own career statistical records, not by reading about it on the sports pages or hearing about it on ESPN. Mainstream sports reporters don’t appear to be interested, somehow, in telling the whole Barry Bonds story.
With Bond’s greatness and all-time credentials, why is it that Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig has the “guts” to say that he’s not planning to participate in the ceremony when Barry breaks Aaron’s career home run record? Even more outrageous, why hasn’t Selig spoken to Bonds in two-and-a half years?
If Bonds’ negative treatment by media and “Baseball,” itself, is really based on allegations of his use of performance-enhancing drugs, then how does the sport and its journalists justify an eerily similar, racially biased reaction to the squeaky clean and media-cooperative Hank Aaron, when he broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record in 1973?
Bonds is booed and called “nigger” in his games on the road; Aaron was booed and called “nigger,” in his home, Atlanta, ball park.
Both men received racially inspired death threats leading up to their achievements; both had to resort to engaging special security details just to get back and forth to the ball park; both were resented for their greatness. And just as Selig has made it plain that he won’t be involved when Bonds breaks the record, Bowie Kuhn, who was Commissioner during Aaron’s record-breaking run, didn’t even bother to show up for the game when Hank finally broke Ruth’s record. (Sometimes I wonder, given his curious, arms-length approach to Bonds’ upcoming achievement, whether Aaron fully appreciates just how much the two men have in common).
In any event, it’s clear this time, Hank Aaron aside, that most African Americans have not been fooled by the Bonds “haters” and their constant drumbeat.
According to a recent poll, despite the fact that only 34 percent of non-Hispanic whites want Bonds to break Aaron’s record; 55 percent of minorities want him to do so. Even in the face of Barry Bond’s awe-inspiring statistical record and the absolute absence of any tangible evidence of his use of performance enhancers, 49 percent of whites believe he should not be in the Hall of Fame. On the other hand, two-thirds of minorities absolutely believe he should be.
It’s becoming increasingly clear every day that the racist treatment of Aaron and Bonds is just a small part of the entire anti-black fabric of Major League Baseball. Over the past 30 years, or, coincidentally, about the same period of time since Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s record, “Baseball” has seemingly lost interest in black folks. Since then, the percentage of African-American players in Major League Baseball has been reduced, apparently by design, from 27 percent to 8.4 percent. By the way, only three percent of Major League pitchers are now black.
By comparison, Blacks represent 65 percent of NFL players and 79 percent of NBA players. Don’t all three leagues operate out of the same country? It seems to me that, in this country, with a black population of 40 million persons, "America's Pastime" would have to systematically and strategically go out of its way to avoid black players to fall so far behind in African-American recruitment.
The problem that baseball and its overwhelming white media corps are having with Barry Bonds transcends steroid allegations and the Ruth-surpassing, Aaron-surpassing home run record.
In my opinion, the Bonds situation and baseball’s perverse treatment of the very best all-time practitioner of its own sport, is a microcosm of the larger, lingering vestiges of racism in this sport and in this country. It’s blatantly obvious in most sports, and certainly not limited to baseball, which, nevertheless, qualifies as a “worst offender” in its category.
Recently, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a Cornell University graduate student produced a report that pointed out that from 1991 through 2004, white NBA referees called fouls at a greater rate against black players than against white players. The researchers concluded that the bias was “large enough that the probability of a team winning is noticeably affected by the racial composition of the refereeing crew assigned to the game.”
In the same way, I have no doubt that the image of a black, professional athlete is “noticeably affected” by the racial composition of the reporters assigned to cover his/her career.
What has been largely overlooked by sports media in their coverage of this report on racially biased referees was the “bigger picture” observation by Rajeev Ravisankar of the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. It reminds us that the same kind of racially and professionally demeaning comments, made so cavalierly about outstanding athletic talents such as Bonds, are just as likely to be made about African-American doctors, lawyers, business owners or construction workers. According to Ravisankar, “It is perhaps more instructive to consider what impact such biases have on employment, education, housing, healthcare, criminal justice, etc.,and how deeply embedded race is in our society and the impact that it has in everyday decision making.”
Commenting on the same report, Ian Ayers of Yale Law School said: “There’s a growing consensus that a large proportion of racialized decisions is not driven by any conscious race discrimination, but that it is often just driven by unconscious or subconscious attitudes. When you force people to make snap decisions, they often can’t keep themselves from subconsciously treating blacks different than whites…”
With Ayers’ insights, I believe, we’re starting to take the first, important steps toward understanding baseball’s otherwise counter-intuitive treatment of its black stars and fan base, and why the media are so willing to participate in the whole, hate-filled charade.
Through sports, we have an opportunity to measure, in a sometimes brutal and unvarnished way, just how far we still have to go, as a nation, to completely eliminate racial bias from American life. Chances are we won’t get there soon enough to show Barry Bonds anywhere near the respect he deserves for being, arguably, the best professional baseball player in history, black or white.
My advice to Baseball, to its racially challenged sports writers and broadcasters, is simple: Try to think honestly about the real reasons why you’ve so readily joined the chorus against the only baseball player who ever produced more than 750 home runs, more than 500 stolen bases, nearly 2000 RBI’s, eight Gold Gloves and seven MVP awards, and, then, “Get over it.”
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