How the latest in bigotry reminds us that baseball is indeed a white man's gamehttps://www.yahoo.com/sports/latest-bigotry-reminds-us-baseball-indeed-white-mans-game-060228106.html
Barring an injury, Juan Soto will be only the 15th player in the last century to log 400-plus plate appearances in a season as a teenager. (AP Photo) The consequences of this are subtle and damning, and they’re how someone like Atlanta Braves announcer Joe Simpson starts a sentence about the Washington Nationals’ precocious outfielder Juan Soto with: “If he’s 19 … ” This is not just about the dog-whistling of a 66-year-old white man who found it perfectly appropriate to imply on a live broadcast that this kid from the Dominican Republic might be lying about his age. Because, you see, other Dominican players have lied about their age, so obviously Soto, who’s really good, and who, Simpson would go on to say, has “man growth,” must be doing it, too.
No, this is about a sport that gives someone like Joe Simpson a platform to say this. A sport that teems with players whose old tweets are filled with racist and bigoted thoughts and language. A sport that day after day, revelation after revelation, exposes itself as a place that subtly and not-so-subtly lets people of color know exactly what the ruling class of the game thinks of them.
Simpson, who through the Braves declined to comment, was rebuked more for his ill-advised but ultimately harmless yelling at clouds about the Los Angeles Dodgers showing disrespect via their batting-practice attire. He apologized for that. Simpson offered no such thing after Nationals general manager Mike Rizzo rightly berated him about Soto, instead saying: “He’s a bona fide 19. And he is a full-grown man. He is strong. And he is one heck of a player. You might as well just write his name in on the Rookie of the Year award right now.”...
