Salt on Monday

Today folks, your esteemed author got some air time on the celebrated Fan590 radio station. Prime Time Sports host Bob McCowan reacted to some recent comments by one Gary Sheffield.

Sheffield basically said that Latin players were easier to control and that black players wouldn’t be controlled as easily.

Sheffield’s comments are indefensible. Had he said that MLB teams have more leverage over Latin players in that they control their ability to work in North America and run virtual baseball sweatshops in Latin countries where the options are either beg for food or learn to steal third base. ( And doesn’t this information put a new face on that fabled Blue Jay camp in the Dominican town of San Pedro de Macoris. ‘Hey Tony Fernandez, you’re going to snag grounders for the next 13 hours or you can go stand outside the resort and beg for pennies with the rest of your family… ’)

He didn’t say that.
He is an idiot to be sure.

So when a caller phoned in to Prime Time sports complaining that nothing would happen to Sheffield over these comments because Sheffield is black, McCowan agreed. I heard this and immediately called in. (Actually I was on hold with Prime Time because I was going to comment on the dirtiest player in the league Chris Pronger, but more on that later..)

McCowan agreed to the caller who felt that black athletes had some kind of carte blanche regarding public comments, and that nothing would be done to Sheffield because of this media pass.

I called in to correct these guys.

Nothing will happen to Gary Sheffield because he can hit Major League pitching – with power - at around a .300 average, not because he is black. That is the truth of the sporting world today.

The second part of the McCowan characterization was the feeling that White athletes don’t make controversial statements like this because they would be run out of their sport if they did.

White athletes don’t have to make comments about anything because there isn’t a sport out there that discriminates against them. The sporting world mirrors the real world. Nobody got fired because black athletes weren’t allowed to play Quarterback in the NFL until about 1984. No one gets up in arms about the automatic ‘leadership qualities’ that prospective white athletes get or the automatic ‘natural athlete’ tag that black athletes get.

I digress.




When Pronger Attacks.

Well Chris Pronger has done it again. This time he throws a well-concealed forearm into the face of Dean McCammond and concusses him. And even though Pronger had been suspended for THE EXACT SAME ACT (blow to the head) in the previous round and suspended for one game, the NHL cannot bring itself to suspend this repeat offender for anything more than a single game.

Is there a job with less accountability that of head of NHL player suspensions? They could have given Pronger an award and no one would have been surprised. They could have baked him a banana chocolate cheesecake and no one would have been surprised. Nice work Colin Campbell!!

I thought that this series would have hinged on the ability of the Ottawa forwards to harass and tire out the Anaheim defensemen. Turns out that this series is being defined by the emergence of Ray Emery, the tenacity of the Senators second and third line players, and the emergence of Cory Perry and Ryan Getzlaf. What it hasn’t been about is the cASH line – Alfredsson, Heatly, Spezza – or Andy McDonald/Teemu Selanne. The skill players have disappeared in this series in part because the Ducks don’t mind playing what they consider to be close to the ‘edge’ and the Senators have decided to match them clutch for clutch and grab for grab. Unfortunately for Anaheim, the refs have been calling them for more and more penalties and that is going to serve as their epitaph if things don’t change.